Two men - whose footage of a confrontation with a litter warden over discarded cigarette butts went viral - will not be fined.

Maidstone Borough Council says that the number of shares of the video on social media had nothing to do with the authority's decision not to issue a fixed penalty notice.

The footage, which has since been taken down, was posted on Facebook and viewed by more than 290,000 people.

It shows Roy Godden, 31, and Gary Cocks, 26, being approached by an environmental enforcement officer as they were putting up a fence in a churchyard in Detling - something they were doing free of charge.

The warden claims he had seen them dropping cigarette butts, while the workmen say they had put them in a wheelbarrow, and refused to give their names.

They were told the police may be called to arrest them, but in the end the officer left without the men's details.

Today, Maidstone Borough Council’s head of environment and street scene, Jennifer Shepherd, responded in full to the incident.

She said: "As can quite clearly be heard on the video, the enforcement officer told the men he would not be issuing them with a fixed penalty notice but would refer the matter to us for consideration.

“We can now confirm that, having done this, we have decided that in this instance a fixed penalty notice will not be issued.

“We are aware that this incident has attracted a great deal of attention on social media. However, it is important to stress that this did not influence our decision.

“The enforcement officer, who is employed by our contractors Kingdom Security, conducted himself well in a difficult situation. Our enforcement officers have a very difficult job to do on behalf of the public and we will not tolerate them being abused for doing their job.

“Littering is a serious problem that the residents of the borough tell us is important to them and which is therefore something we take a robust approach to.

“Enforcement is only a part of this. We provide more than 1,500 litter bins, spend £1.6m a year on street cleansing, and use publicity to encourage and thank people for keeping our streets litter free.”