The government has effectively made it illegal for people who don’t already live together to have sex, as that would be considered a “gathering”, and against the coronavirus lockdown social distancing laws.
New amendments to the lockdown law loosen most of the major restrictions than had been put in place in March, including easing restrictions on senior citizens and those with underlying health conditions. Schools can reopen on Monday, and people can gather outside, including in gardens, in numbers of up to six as long as social distancing is still maintained.
But a new line to the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) Bill adds on Monday: “No person may participate in a gathering which takes place in a public or private place indoors, and consists of two or more persons.”
It says elsewhere, according to The Mirror, that “no person may, without reasonable excuse, stay overnight at any place other than the place where they are living”.
The law means that both the person visiting and the person whose house is being visited could be fined £100, or £50 if paid within 14 days.
Lawyers went to work on Twitter to discuss the interpretation of the law, with Human rights barrister Adam Wagner writing on Sunday: “I can’t believe I’m about to tweet this. From tomorrow sex between two (or more) people in a private place who do not live in the same household is a ‘gathering’ between 2 or more people and is therefore illegal.”
However, George Pertez QC put forth that if the visitor was a prostitute, then that might be permissible “as that is reasonably necessary for work purposes”.
Police, however, will not have the power to forcibly enter your home to stop you having intercourse with a lover from another address. A spokesman for Prime Minister Boris Johnson told the Metro that police could only enter a property “where they suspect serious criminal activity is taking place under separate and existing laws”. The spokesman added that police would continue “exercising their common sense and engaging with the public”.
The Police Federation of England and Wales had said in April that it wanted increased powers to forcibly enter private houses to see if there were illegal gatherings.
Constabularies and police forces across the country had come under criticism for their tyrannical approach to enforcing the lockdown. Such examples have included pouring black dye into a body of water in a beauty spot to deter swimmers, using a drone to follow dog-walkers, and shaming people for going for a drive out of boredom or families who walked to the shops together.
Last month, the Crown Prosecution Service said that it was going to review every fine and prosecution made under the coronavirus legislation after it was found that the law had been applied either incorrectly or in a heavy-handed manner.
The government’s scientific adviser Neil Ferguson, the author of the UK’s lockdown measures, resigned from his post after it was revealed that he had broken lockdown to have at least two liaisons with his married lover. Police said at the time that they would not be investigating further Mr Ferguson’s lockdown breach.
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