A local Green Party environmental activist, caught illegally selling vuvuzela horns outside Wembley Stadium before an England friendly, has lost her appeal against the conviction.
Naomi Aptowitzer, 41, of Juniper Crescent, Camden Town, who finished third in the Kentish Town ward council by-election on October 31, last year, claimed her official peddler’s licence allowed her to sell by the roadside.
Aptowitzer – the CEO of electric bike company ZiPee – is also a musician who performs under the name MC Ni and has recorded a track entitled ‘Vuvuzela’.
Harrow Crown Court heard she was spotted with a trolley bag fully of the South African instruments outside the stadium on August 11, last year before the England friendly with Hungary.
The plastic horns, which emit a whine that became the sound of last year’s World Cup, are currently banned from all football grounds.
The horns were seized because Aptowitzer was not in possession of a street traders licence and magistrates conditionally discharged her with an order to pay £300 costs.
The prosecution revealed the defendant had been given numerous warnings in the area on previous occasions for illegal street trading.
Aptowitzer told the court her twelve-month Peddler’s Certificate, issued at Holborn Police Station, allowed her to sell to the public under the 1871 Act.
However, she was prosecuted under the 2004 London Local Authorities Act, which the court ruled took precedence and her appeal against the conviction and sentence was dismissed.
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