smoking in the van: It's not a fair cop guv

Lots of press coverage about the case of a decorator from Aberystwyth pulled over by council officials and fined for smoking in his own van, see here .

Obviously the papers are doing their usual schtick about the world gone mad, but it's a straightforward contravention of the smoke-free regulations which say that a work vehicle constitutes a workplace and smoking is prohibited.

Except that the Regs (paragraph 4 (1) of the Smoke-free Premises etc. (Wales) Regulations 2007, since you ask) actually say that a vehicle shall be smoke free if it is "used for work purposes by more than one person (even if the persons who use it for such purposes do so at different times, or only intermittently)."

But Gordon Williams the decorator, says he only uses the van himself, so I'm not sure they had him to rights.

Meanwhile if you want to see an open and shut case of someone breaking the law on smoke-free vehicles, there's one here (she's in a hire car)