DOOR-TO-DOOR delivery workers have been disciplined after collection bags for an armed forces charity were dumped in a bush.

ECS Textiles moved against an unspecified number of employees after appeal bags for the Forces Support charity were dumped in Pity Me, Durham.

The case was raised by Jacqueline Stanhope, who made headlines last year when she dumped a bin bag-full of rubbish in Abbey Leisure Centre to highlight the state of the area.

The middle-aged litter campaigner and self-professed “most boring of people” informed Forces Support and ECS, the North Shields-based firm which organises its house-to-house clothing collections.

She said: “I kept finding charity bags being dumped around there.

“There’s a lot of good guys who deliver as they’re paid to do, but there are others who don’t.

“It’s fly tipping. It’s wrong on every level. I don’t like littering. The public are particularly appalled, I suspect, when forces charities are let down in this way.”

Eligijus Cinaitis, general manager of ECS, said disciplinary action had been taken against “employees working in Durham area”.

“Receiving information from residents about our work performance is very important to us and helpful to plan and organiser further operations.

“Every complaint is taken very seriously and we are working on implementing stricture procedures to avoid this happening in the future,” he added.

Mr Cinaitis said ECS was informed of the situation on Friday, February 27, and immediately sent a team member to collect the bags, but they could not be found.

He said the company was providing a professional service to the best of its abilities and employees were required to maintain good standards of conduct.

“Some unscrupulous employees sometimes show improper job performance and bring (the) company’s name into disrepute.

“By dumping bags they are avoiding their daily duty to deliver bags to households and still being paid (an) hourly wage for the job they didn’t do,” Mr Cinaitis added.

Mrs Stanhope said she found dumped charity bags about every six weeks, including for the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) and other good causes.