The British government wants police to hit the public with Covid fines after just one verbal warning, it has emerged, after video footage showing one woman being surrounded by officers for leaving her house more than once in a day and another having her hands cuffed behind her back for “sitting on a bench” circulated online.
The push to “move through the gears” quickly and hammer supposed lockdown breakers with fines has been elaborated by Home Office sources helps explains the footage, which shows a woman at the seafront with an elderly companion being hectored by a large group of police telling her she has been recorded at various locations around town, and that people are only allowed to leave their homes for their daily exercise once a day for a set period of time.
“[A]t the moment, you’re allowed out for exercise once a day,” badgered one of the officers wh0 had surrounded her, while a colleague threatened to arrest her if she would not give her personal details, citing anti-social behaviour legislation.
The video then moves to another woman yelping in pain as her wrists and handcuffed behind her back for, she tells the camera operator, “sitting on a bench”.
“We are going to see more rapid movement to enforcement,” a Home Office source told the Telegraph.
“Over 1,000 people died yesterday. It is important that everyone sticks to the rules. The rules have been around for long enough,” the source said, before offering a strange comparison between the pandemic situation and some sort of mass-casualty active shooter situation.
“If there was a gunman who killed 1,000 people yesterday running around the country and the Government said ‘stay at home’ everyone would say ‘OK I’ll do that, I won’t go for a coffee with some friends and walk around the park’,” they explained.
The crackdown comes as police officers in London, led by Labour mayor Sadiq Khan and left-wing senior officer Cressida Dick, face investigation for “flouting” lockdown rules themselves by gathering in a café near the Thames for sit-down breakfasts, which are banned under the current regulations.
“We noticed in the first lockdown and then we noticed it again today that, regularly, first thing in the morning there will be half a dozen squad cars outside [the café] and every table full of police officers having breakfast in there,” said Brian Jennings, who took pictured of officers appearing to enjoy table service at the cafe and squad cars gathered outside.
“I find the regular, continued flouting of social distancing, and lockdown regulations by the police hypocritical and foolish,” he added.
The Metropolitan Police says an investigation has been launched “to identify the officers and establish the full circumstances.”
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