A WOMAN who threw a cigarette end from her car last night received an instant £50 fixed penalty fine.

She was the only motorist to be fined for throwing litter from her car as part of a council's 12-hour offensive to cut littering offences.

Community safety wardens from Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council worked with Cleveland Police using mobile cameras to catch people throwing litter from vehicles on four main roads in the borough.

The exercise, which was geared to coincide with Keep Britain Tidy's National Car Litter Campaign, was planned to take place between 3pm and 3am on Thursday but was called off at 11pm because of difficulty with light and motorists driving too fast.

Councillor Joyce Benbow, cabinet member for community safety, said: "We witnessed many instances where litter was thrown, from sweet wrappers to fag ends.

"The problems we had were in enforcing the fines - simply because the motorists were breaking the speed limit on these fast roads, and as nightfall came, the images from the cameras would not have been good enough to back up the fixed penalty tickets."

She said the operation had been a very useful deterrent and that it would be repeated.

"The council spends many thousands each year on keeping the borough's streets clean," she said.

"One particular area we want to concentrate on are the car parks, which at this time of the year can provide a serious litter problem for us."