Covid travel restrictions and Police fines etc.

[bagpuss]

The mad thing about the exercise rule is that where I live (Bristol) everyone is driving to the local open space to walk in, so it becomes busy and harder to social distance. If we drove out of the city we could walk without seeing barely anyone by using public footpaths and areas we know not to be well known. I've not been into a shop since last March, or caving (limiting indoor contacts for health reasons) but the staying local rule is the hardest thing to deal with. If we lived in the countryside I know the impact of lockdown would not have had such a significant on my management of mental illness and by walking in isolated places less risk of catching or passing on the virus.

 

[cap n chris]

Question:
Is it not the case that in UK law you do not have to talk to a police officer, even if you are being arrested ("..You have a right to remain silent etc...")?

If this is the case then the obvious go-to is to not talk and therefore it means you don't need any excuse to be out and about whatsoever, 'cos if you ain't talkin', there's nothing to explain. You do have to stop when ordered to do so by a police officer but after that there's v little they can do. So I believe/understand.

 

[Rachel]

The police up here have been driving around and 'sending people away' from sites like Ribblehead, Storrs Common and even Kingsdale if they aren't 'local' (they are using 10 miles as a guideline);

Is the 10 mile guideline an offcial thing? As a local it would make my life a lot easier, as I've been driving to Ingleton (Kingsdale and Storrs Common included) for exercise but have been unsure if going further is ok or not from a police point of view.

 

[PeteHall]

Is the 10 mile guideline an offcial thing?

Assume not as the Covid Regulations do not restrict the distance travelled for exercise and the term 'local area' has deliberately not been defined in the regulations.

You cannot legally be fined for leaving your home for exercise, no matter how far you travel, however if the police ask you to return home, you are still obliged to follow their instructions. So the worst that can happen is that you drive to your preferred quiet location for a walk and get sent home again. Though the reality is that the plod will be hanging out in the honey pot sites, so if you go somewhere quiet, you are unlikely to have any trouble at all.

 

[cap n chris]

See link at bottom of this news item, very telling.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-dorset-55781735

 

[cap n chris]

Is the 10 mile guideline an offcial thing?

No. It's bollocks. It's a guideline; it's not law. Guidelines are not legally enforceable. People engaging with the police might be issued an (illegal) fine which they might choose to pay though. Don't engage, don't explain; just live your life.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHE3OerDKEY

 

[RobinGriffiths]

Question:
Is it not the case that in UK law you do not have to talk to a police officer, even if you are being arrested ("..You have a right to remain silent etc...")?

If this is the case then the obvious go-to is to not talk and therefore it means you don't need any excuse to be out and about whatsoever, 'cos if you ain't talkin', there's nothing to explain. You do have to stop when ordered to do so by a police officer but after that there's v little they can do. So I believe/understand.

That appears to be so, but apparantly, some police officers have used the lack of response to imply reasonable grounds to suspect that an offence has been committed under the Covid rules.

 

[Oceanrower]

I've not been into a shop since last March, or caving (limiting indoor contacts for health reasons) but the staying local rule is the hardest thing to deal with.

Fortunately, whatever the doommongerers would have you believe, the ?staying local? rule is not actually a rule but merely a figment of what this incompetent government would want you to believe...

There is NO requirement to stay local if exercising (in England, other nations of the UK may differ) only that you need a reasonable excuse to leave your house. Exercise is a reasonable excuse.

I would be absolutely shocked if any of these FPN?s, if challenged, were upheld. They have absolutely no basis in law. That?s not to say that the police won?t issue them and hope they?re not challenged...

 

[JoshW]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHE3OerDKEY

For some reason I just don?t get the feeling that this man has my best interests at heart. Could it be that he?s anti-lockdown not because he believes older lives are worthless (see 2014 statements regarding the inherent sanctity of all human life), but in fact is just hoping for best returns from wherever he?s invested his millions in lifetime earnings and inheritance. The fact he?s written a book that is anti-equality should also concern all.

 

[RobinGriffiths]

I suspect that Sumption is more of a Viz Mr Logic type of character rather than anything more sinister.

 

[ChrisJC]

I guess the government were hoping that the proles were capable of working out what 'local' meant, and abiding by it, without the need for application of the legal stick.

It seems they were wrong.

Chris.

 

[cap n chris]

.. some police officers have used the lack of response to imply reasonable grounds to suspect that an offence has been committed under the Covid rules.

So there is no right of silence? Clearly there is and clearly such police officers as mentioned above are breaking the lawful procedure. Any fine they issued should be ignored and if the courts pursued it, challenged.

 

[mikem]

Sumption makes more sense than the government:
https://www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/hale-and-sumption-to-be-grilled-on-covid-emergency-powers/5106623.article

& I know it's the Mail, but:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-9231807/amp/Zero-Covid-mirage-says-JONATHAN-SUMPTION-virus-stay.html

 

[Speleofish]

Oh dear. Sumption makes very cogent, very good arguments (he should, that's what he's spent a lifetime doing brilliantly) but doesn't start from a neutral position. He has always argued for individual freedoms rather than communal good, no matter what evidence there is that such freedoms lead to greater harms.

The Mail article is similarly biased (I accept, so am I but in the opposite direction). However, any position that implicitly accepts 750,000 deaths is difficult to agree with.

 

[NeilC]

I guess the government were hoping that the proles were capable of working out what 'local' meant, and abiding by it, without the need for application of the legal stick.

It seems they were wrong.

Chris.

That's a very charitable interpretation of the Government's actions.  It seems more likely to me that the 'rules' are deliberately vague / confusing / contradictory so that the Government can blame the 'proles' for the disastrous situation we find ourselves in, rather than itself.  After all, they do have a history of issuing vague and contradictory rules / guidelines throughout the pandemic, not to mention the frequent screeching u-turns. 

 

[PeteHall]

any position that implicitly accepts 750,000 deaths is difficult to agree with.

To give it the context:

Covid-19 is serious, but it is no worse than the scenario for which governments have planned for years. A pandemic caused by a new respiratory disease has topped the National Risk Register since 2008. In 2017, it assumed that a new pathogen might cause 750,000 deaths.

The principles of any response were set out in a 2011 Department of Health strategy.

They were designed to ensure the minimum of disruption. The aim was to shield the sick and the vulnerable, not isolate the healthy and economically active.

It was to 'encourage those who are well to carry on with their normal lives for as long and as far as that is possible'. The Government would not close borders or stop mass gatherings. Lockdown was not even an option. Minutes of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) show that the same policies were the basis of its advice to Ministers right up to the moment last March when the first lockdown was decided.

On March 13, the behavioural scientists had advised 'citizens should be treated as rational actors, capable of taking decisions for themselves and managing personal risk'.

But then Ministers discarded a decade of planning in a few hours and embarked on a sinister and untried experiment with the lives of millions. They ordered a national lockdown which was both coercive and indiscriminate.

His point is that we have been planning for an event like this for decades. The government had a plan that had considered the wider effects of a pandemic response, yet all this planning was dumped over the course of a single cabinet meeting, without any regard to the wider impacts.

As with anything, consider all eventualities, make a good plan and stick to it. These constant U-turns for short term headlines will do nothing to help our country and our people in the long term. 

 

[Speleofish]

I was involved in some pandemic planning meetings in the run up to the swine flu pandemic. A variety of scenarios were presented (which included several hundred thousand deaths) and a variety of plans are made to deal with them. These led to a disconnect between the rather remote epidemiological, Department of Health approach to the problem and the clinical, economic and political response. At which point the meetings frequently become quite heated.

The difficulties include (1) society is so interconnected that it is almost possible to provide robust shielding for the elderly and vulnerable (2) any attempt at containment short of a lockdown breaks down in the face of a highly transmissible disease (both have been well demonstrated in the last year) and (c) any disease that causes 750,000 deaths will cause lead to vastly more people debilitated through illness. Once one has a disease that kills 750,000 people, the number of people ill and off work has dramatic effects on the economy - think no fuel or grocery deliveries, no policing, unscheduled power cuts etc etc. Long before this point, the health service collapses completely, so even people with fairly mild disease start to die. These consequences are only 'acceptable' if there is no other alternative. Given the disruption we've experienced during a two-three phase pandemic with 'only' 100,000 deaths, imagine the effect of a single phase outbreak with 500,000+ deaths...

 

[Alex]

The reason why the alternative would not work, as shielding the vulnerable and those at harm does mean locking up 15 million+ of the pop anyway, it's lockdown just another kind of lock-down and a permanent one until Covid is eliminated. There are just too many people that fall into that category, as you can tell by the vaccine priorities.

Lockdown 1 was needed, but it was botched completely, we never went on the Covid elimination strategy meaning 1 and a half months of harsh lock-down 1 and closed borders for good meaning by now we would be completely free, yes we are not quite an Island, thanks to our land border with Ireland but I am sure we could have negotiated with Ireland to do the same. (the gov appear to be doing the closed border part now, only took them a year!)

So I am pissed off that a 3rd nevermind a second but a 3rd lockdown was needed. Up here where I live, we have effectively been in lock-down since October! No end in sight either, because this is such woolly lock-down, it's taking ages to get the numbers down, rather than going hard and fast and getting the damn thing over with, this lock-down the way it's being managed is almost completely ineffective, we are lucky infection rates are coming down as quickly as they are (and that's bloody slow). Meaning people who are currently obeying the rules like me and have already not gone caving for months, have to spend longer not doing the sport they love and not being able to see tier parents/family, mates in the pubs etc. You can see why I (and others) am starting to think feck-it, no one else is obeying/laws are too woolly anyway so I am not even sure I have to obey them as its not a legal requirement anyway. So why should we continue to give up what we love, because this government is so incompetent, while others are able to get on with their lives?

 

[Pitlamp]

It's just not true Alex, that "no one else is obeying/laws".

Believe me, I share your frustration - but what you seem to be suggesting above would only make the problems last longer still.

I'm afraid we're all in this together (with notable exceptions such as a certain person with the initials "DC" of course). The more we co-operate with the spirit of the rules, the sooner we'll be able to crack on with our pastime, legitimately. I've lost quite a few friends to Covid since March 2020 (one, a fellow club member, only a fortnight ago - and he wasn't particularly old). We're still in the thick of a serious pandemic; now isn't the time to be complacent.

 

[PeteHall]

Lockdown 1 was needed, but it was botched completely, we never went on the Covid elimination strategy meaning 1 and a half months of harsh lock-down 1 and closed borders for good meaning by now we would be completely free

Or we would all have starved to death as we rely heavily on imported food, so closing borders was never an option.

Elimination through lockdown is not, and never has been, a viable strategy for this country.