A hairdresser was caught smoking in the doorway of his salon when a council environmental health officer drove past.

Matthew Charles Bates, of Michael Charles Hair Salon in Cross Street, Blaby, was fined £100 and ordered to pay £320 costs after the on-duty officer, waiting at traffic lights, looked out of her car and saw him having a cigarette in the doorway of his business.

He pleaded guilty in writing to Leicester magistrates to a charge of smoking in a smoke-free place.

Sarah Khawaja, for Blaby District Council, said smoke-free regulations had been introduced to protect people working in public places and non-smoking members of the public, from the dangers of passive, secondary smoking.

"On September 23, a senior environmental health officer was driving down Cross Street and had to stop outside the salon where she saw a man smoking in the doorway," she said.

Ms Khawaja said the council had received a number of complaints about people working at the salon who had smoked, so the officer parked her car at the back of the business and saw the man flick his cigarette butt into a flowerpot before going into the shop.

"The butt was still burning."

The officer told people in the shop she had seen a man smoking and Mr Bates came in, admitting he was responsible.

When told by the officer he had been given advice and warnings, Mr Bates said it was impossible for him to leave the salon for the whole time it took to smoke a complete cigarette.

He said: "I feel it is unrealistic and that smoking in public and passive smoking are no big deal compared with more important things."