As the end of March approaches, we have reached both the first anniversary of Britain’s coronavirus state of emergency – and at the same time the end of this blog. We have kept this diary for a year now, first daily, then weekly, and now monthly.

The past year has seen the enforcement of the coronavirus state of emergency fundamentally undermine the myth of “policing by consent”. With its draconian new Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, the government appears to want to destroy it completely.

In January, the police complained they were seen as “the villains of the pandemic” – that was partly because of our work. Last month, we warned against the “Slow Building of an Emergency State” in Britain. It seems as though the police have learnt little since.

While there is – unfortunately – still more than enough to report on, there are others that keep an eye on the issue, Big Brother Watch and the various lawyers that we’ve been working with.

On a lighter note, this final post appears with what seems the start of Spring – and the further lifting of some of the restrictions that came with the most recent three month lockdown.

POLICING

In England from 29 March, more outdoor activities as permitted by government regulations and the ‘stay-at-home’ rule is lifted. In the aftermath of public backlash against police cracking down on protests (see below), these are now exempt from restrictions on large gatherings, as long as they are organised by a public body, business or political body or other group. Organisers are also required to undertake risk assessments (with all the continuing concerns about the police’s lack of experience in assessing public health risks, which we highlighted here again and again), as well as maintain social distancing.

As the first anniversary of the first lockdown approached this month, in many respects little has changed since this time last year, with the police continuing to confuse the law with government guidance. Contrary to what police forces in England keep saying, there has been no outright ban on public gatherings and the police remain obliged to consider human rights laws, when deciding how to interpret the regulations.

As lawyer Pippa Woodrow emphasised, police permission isn’t a legal pre-requisite to a protest being lawful, and police do not have a general discretion to permit or refuse to allow protests. Proportionality assessment is a legal question which can be challenged.

In practice, the opposite has been true. In Manchester, the organiser of a protest against the government’s controversial 1% pay rise plan for NHS staff in England was fined £10,000 by police. The rally in city centre on 7 March at midday was attended by about 40 people. The organiser was woman who works for the NHS, aged 61. Another NHS worker, aged 65, was arrested for failing to provide details after initially refusing to leave. She was de-arrested and fined £200 after complying, police said.

Meanwhile in Scotland, on the same day, police worked tirelessly escorting the Rangers fans to make sure they made it safely from Ibrox to George Square to celebrate winning the league.

A week later, faced with a legal challenge from organisers for a planned protest in memory of Sarah Everard, where the suspect in her murder is a serving Metropolitan Police officer, the force admitted that its position that its “hands are tied” by the coronavirus regulations was incorrect and it did not have a “blanket ban” on all protests. Nevertheless, after the High Court refused to intervene, subsequent negotiations fell through and the vigil’s original organisers were forced to cancel the event. Inevitably, with mounting public anger over the murder, a gathering went ahead anyway at Clapham Common on 13 March and led to scenes of arrests and confrontation that were widely condemned.

On 30 March, HM Inspectorate of Constabulary, Fire and Rescue released a report on its investigation into the policing of the Sarah Everard memorial gathering. It concluded the police response was “appropriate”, because even though the Metropolitan Police had been wrongly interpreting the regulations in the past, it was obliged to act in a consistent way. This assessment is unlikely to convince any of the critics of the way the police responded to the vigil.

Since that crackdown in mid-March, a growing movement has condemned police intolerance to the right to protest and warned this will only become worse with the passing of the government’s Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill. Protests in Bristol and Manchester have been restricted based on justifications of the need to protect public health and in Bristol, recurring demonstrations have been met with an increasing violent response.

In Manchester, Manchester Evening News reported that at an initial demonstration on 21 March, police did not intervene with protestors. However, 15 people called Green and Black Cross Manchester to report they had been issued Fixed Penalty Notices (FPNs). The majority of these related to attendance, but at least one person has been threatened with a £10,000 fine for being an organiser of the protest, according to Netpol. The following week, the police response to a further demonstration was more confrontational, with accusations that officers had assaulted teenagers. One arrest, involving a young person whose clothes were almost pulled from her body, is now the subject of an internal police investigation after a photo was circulated by Reuters.

Meanwhile in Manchester and Sheffield, students have accused their universities of granting police officers access to halls of residence to check for breaches of coronavirus rules, sometimes in the middle of the night. The Guardian heard about regular police patrols and widespread use of fines of up to £800 as universities clamp down to avoid major coronavirus outbreaks now that students are returning for the spring term.

Students say they believe that in some instances police officers may have received keys from university security to enter flats unannounced and check that students were not socialising with their neighbours. The universities have denied this.

Meanwhile, dozens of people performing doing a HokeyCokey dance in Alexandra Park in Hastings on 15 March, were dispersed by the police. No covid fines were issued, though many were not wearing masks and 1,5 distance was not kept.

NEW REGULATIONS

The government released a new set of regulations, another 93 pages that for the first time were published ahead of implementation. Michael Maggs started summarising, and barrister Adam Wagner has a first overview of what the plans mean. “First thing to say: this is another completely new system. We have had national restrictions, local restrictions by separate regulations, the first lot of Tiers (1-3), a second national lockdown, new Tiers (1-3+) then Tier 4 added, third national lockdown. Now we have… Steps.”

Big Brother Watch warns against the Government’s report on the Coronavirus Act because it says Schedule 21 power to forcibly detain, quarantine and test people, including children are “essential” in the “long term”. The report also says extreme Schedule 22 powers, under which Ministers can issue directions to ban protests & gatherings, “may be used” as we “move through the roadmap”. Big Brother watch urges people to lean on their MP to get rid of this law.

RESOURCES

* Fixed penalty notices during lockdown “allow the police to operate as both judges and as jury, with no appeal courts able to intervene”. Here’s lawyer David Renton’s advice on what to do if you get one.

* Justice Nowhere: Racist Policing Under Lockdown– Ken Hinds via YouTube. Hear from Ken Hinds, Chair of Haringey’s Independent Stop and Search Monitoring Group speak on the use of force and strategies to hold police forces accountable.

POLICING

In late February, the National Police Chiefs Council published the latest statistics (PDF) on coronavirus fixed penalty notices. This indicated that 68,9522 notices have been recorded as having been issued in England (63,201) and Wales (5,751) between Friday 27th March 2020 and Monday 14th February 2021. There was a sharp rise in the number of fines issued following the week of 18th-24th December 2020, coinciding with the introduction of Tier 4 in England. Almost half (45%) of all fixed penalty notices have been issued to young people aged 18-24 years old.

A week after Metropolitan Police Commissioner Dame Cressida Dick said it was “preposterous” that anyone could be unaware of the regulations, nine officers were fined for breaching Covid-19 legislation. Photos emerged online in January showing a group of uniformed officers from the South East Basic Command Unit (BCU) dining in a local café. They were issued with fixed penalty notices to the value of £200 each.

When a group of families travelled to go sledging in early February, the police claimed they had breached COVID regulations. Barrister Adam Wagner contested that, saying: ‘Non-essential travel’ is not part of the law. Not the police’s job to enforce guidance. Also not clear that sledging in the same place as others would be a ‘gathering’.

Essex Police cited a law, the Health Protection Act, which doesn’t exist to warn people at Wat Tyler that birdwatching was not allowed. Stopping frequently to view birds would change the walking as exercise (allowed) to recreation (not allowed). More generally one can question why enforcement of a solitary, isolated activity would be proportionate to the risk.

A woman was fined for going for a walk on the beach with her young daughter. This is not against the law. Big Brother Watch stated that “it is not the job of the police to implement government ‘advice.’”

Apart from cases of an apparent confusion between law and guidance, it is also clear that the police have continued to use the pandemic to expand their powers in other ways, just as they did at the start of the lockdown.

A neighbourhood policing operation in Leeds stopped over 60 vehicles on one road “to ensure that drivers and their passengers were complying with UK government restrictions on essential travel during the pandemic”

On Wednesday 27 January, a mother shared a video on Twitter of a West Midlands police officer stopping her commuting son and asking for his personal details under the guise of enforcing coronavirus legislation. The officer proceeds to harass the man, then arrests him for refusing to disclose his name, address, saying “We’re the police, not just ‘someone’, you idiot”. Netpol commented: “Police officers often use the authority of their uniform, the threat of arrest or outright aggression to frighten people into handing over personal details when there is no legal basis for demanding it.”

Students at the University of Manchester said they have been left frightened by “heavy-handed” policing on campus, with reports of officers entering accommodation to check for coronavirus breaches. ‘It feels like we’re constantly being watched.’ One first-year student told The Independent she had put in an official complaint with Greater Manchester Police (GMP) last month, as she did not know why they entered her flat before issuing fines.

PROTEST

Police closed down peaceful social-distanced Kurdish protest on 13 February, called to put pressure on Turkey to release political prisoner Abdullah Öcalan and to stop attacking the Kurdish people. They had contacted police ahead of the protest, and at the start of the gathering they spoke to the senior officer offering to put in place all necessary safety measures to ensure a CoVid-safe environment. As filmed and reported by Real Media, the police refused to negotiate and instead put a Section 35 dispersal order under the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime & Policing Act 2014 in place, threatening anyone attending with fines and/or arrest. Attracting a few dozen people, the protest went ahead for a while. As people dispersed, police chased demonstrators down Green Lanes picking people at random to hand out fines.

Police gave 14 Scottish seafood truckers, who had vowed to dump tons of rotten fish on the Prime Minister’s doorstep in protest, £200 covid fines each for ‘unnecessary journeys’ after their No10 protest. Rather than about protecting public health, this seems to be about abusing emergency powers to silence dissent.

LEGAL

The High Court overturned a conviction for refusing to provide name and address in relation to a suspected breach of Coronavirus Regulations. Sitting at Cardiff on 23 February, it issued an important judgment on the right to silence, the legal duties of citizens and the scope of the Coronavirus Regulations, Patrick Ormerod and Hester Cavaciuti at Bindmans explain.

In Neale v DPP, the court quashed the applicant’s conviction for obstructing a police officer by failing to provide his name and address when requested to do so in order that a Fixed Penalty Notice be issued for allegedly breaching the Coronavirus Regulations.

The legislation does not create a legal duty to provide personal details to a police constable and the High Court concluded that it was not possible to imply such a duty. They warned the court should be wary of expanding police powers by implication.

In 25 August 2020 at Newport Magistrates’ Court , Mr Neale was already acquitted of the offence of leaving home without reasonable excuse on the basis that he was homeless at the time of the alleged offence (the prohibition on leaving home does not apply to homeless people) – and in any event, he had a reasonable excuse for being outside because he was taking his key worker friend’s car for an MOT test. 

Neale was supported by BBW and represented by Bindmans and Garden Court Chambers. For more detail see this Bindmans collumn.

OPINION

“In the short term, it matters if people do not know what the law forbids – that includes the police, whose every mistaken crackdown breeds more distrust. Distrust and confusion are the virus’s friends. And for the future, it matters greatly if ministers think they can order us about without a legal basis, and if we grow used to it.” Confusion and Distrust by Francis FitzGibbon in the London Review of Books, 14 February 2021.

“Policing will never be better if it continues to be rooted in environments where authoritarian and racist principles prevail, where the goal is to punish and control, instead of saving the society from a serious crisis.” – Eveline Lubbers, one of the founders of Policing The Corona State, interviewed by Mohamed Meelhazi in Sputnik International “Britain is experiencing the ‘Slow Building of an Emergency State’, Warns Civil Liberties Monitor”.

RESOURCES

• Big Brother Watch Briefing on The Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions)
  (All Tiers and Self-Isolation) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2021 for the
  House of Lords. 1 March 2021, the Lords debated regulations that give police access to Test & Trace data – a month after coming into force. Big Brother Watch has been pointing out that this is disastrous for medical privacy, which has long been the foundation of public health. This briefing explain the how and why. 

• Civic space in the era of securitised COVID-19 responses, a new report from the European Centre for Not-for-Profit Law looking at how security-related legislation introduced or used by states during the pandemic has restricted civic freedoms and human rights.

 

Both the Undercover Research Group and Netpol are particularly busy and cannot update this diary as regularly as usual. This is a summary of policing of coronavirus restrictions over the last month.

POLICING

As 2020 drew to a close, around the country there were reports that police had clamped down on unauthorised New Year gatherings. In Liverpool, it was reported that shoppers drivers from Tier 4 areas were stopped by police from entering Merseyside on a major route into the city. Officers in York issued what police described as a “shocking number of fines” to people from tier 3 areas visiting the tier 2 city over the weekend before Christmas.

Small detail: there is no legal restriction on travelling from one Tier to another, or within one Tiered area, it’s advice only. There is no power under the regulations for police to stop cars. So in short, this should not be happening.

The start of the new year has seen warnings that the national lockdown in England will result in an increase in the number of fines issued by the police.

Police in Devon and Cornwall have been stopping people and asking where they have travelled from. Suffolk Police officers had been told to “step up” enforcement. Avon and Somerset Police have confirmed whether it will use automatic number plate recognition technology  

On 7 January, Home Secretary Priti Patel told ‘Good Morning Britain’ that “If you are out, police officers may ask you for justification why you are out and about.” The chair of the National Police Chiefs’ Council, Martin Hewitt added that “Forces will continue to bear down on that very small minority who flagrantly and selfishly breach the regulations”.  

On 12 January, Metropolitan Police Commissioner Dame Cressida Dick said it was “preposterous” that anyone could be unaware of the need to follow the stringent lockdown measures. The barrister Adam Wagner, who has been compiling the regular changes in the regulations, said she was wrong to say that most people understand the rules and shared a video explaining why they are not straightforward. Two days before, it was reported that officers in Greenwich appear to flout the restrictions by tucking into breakfast, packing the restaurant – that should not be serving tables in the first place – without any social distancing.

There are real risks for the police in introducing more stringent lockdown measures and potentially facing a repeat of the backlash they faced in 2020. The Police Federation has repeatedly complained that officer morale within forces took a major hit last year and in December it was reported that a survey in West Midlands found that 69 per cent of almost 1000 respondents felt the virus had had a “negative or very negative” impact on morale. National chair John Apter was quoted as saying, “despite doing their very best, they [officers] have been turned into the villains of this pandemic by some”. Coincidently, these exact words were used as the headline for an interview last year with the editors of Policing The Corona State for the Haldane Society’s Socialist Lawyer magazine.

FIXED PENALTY NOTICES

On 8 January, the National Police Chiefs Council reported that 32,329 fixed penalty notices had been recorded as having been issued in England and Wales under Coronavirus Regulations between Friday 27 March and Monday 21 December. Of these, 6,475 notices have been processed under the regulations covering the English national lockdown that commenced on 5 November. Nevertheless, the NPCC’ chair Hewitt said that the police “had reserved enforcement for the most blatant offenders”.

The largest number of fines was issued by Northumbria (3,034), Greater Manchester (2,183), Dyfed-Powys (1,784) Metropolitan (1,761), Lancashire (1,506), North Yorkshire (1,484) and Merseyside (1,411). A full breakdown is available here.

A few days earlier The Times reported that last year, 350 people have been wrongly charged under laws covering coronavirus restrictions and some have been wrongly convicted. The review of all charges announced by the Crown Prosecution Service in May shows that all 218 people charged under the Coronavirus Act and 115 people prosecuted under the Health Protection Regulations were dealt with wrongly. Kirsty Brimelow, QC, who worked on this for the last nine months, said this is only the top of the iceberg: “As there are so many wrongful prosecutions (where there are safeguards of reviewing lawyers), there will be many more Fixed Penalty Notes issued unlawfully”. She called for them to be reviewed as well. 

Just befor Christmas, a group of students⁩ had their life-changing £10,000 FPNs withdrawn by police after pro bono representations of Adam Wagner and Pippa Woodrow. Bindmans lawyers emphasize that if FPNs have been wrongly imposed, or the fixed penalty amount is disproportionate in the circumstances of the case, then swift representations to the police may, potentially, lead to them being withdrawn or replaced. There is no formal route of appeal under the legislation, however, and much will depend on the attitude of the police force concerned.

This was promptly illustrated by Derbyshire Police – infamous last year for their excessive interpretation of coronavirus regulations – were reported to have fined two women £200 each for driving five miles to take a walk, saying their hot drinks were “classed as a picnic”. The force initially issued this statement and then said it was reviewing fixed penalty notices.

Meanwhile, Police Scotland has issued more than 7000 fines since the start of the pandemic. The Scottish National Party MP Margaret Ferrier was arrested and charged by police after travelling despite a positive coronavirus test. On 8 January, Big Brother Watch shared a video showing Police Scotland officers storming into a family home on suspicion they had guests around. In fact, their seriously ill daughter had just been discharged from hospital.

RIGHTS TO PROTEST

After it was restricted in November, protest returned as an exemption of the ban on gatherings with the introduction of the three tiers system by the end of that month (70 pages, over 30,000 words, according to Adam Wagner).  Picketing was added separately, allowed when carried out in accordance with the Trade Union and Labour Regulations Act 1992 – and the necessary precautions of course.

However, with the stronger lockdown coming into force on 21 December last year, the National Police Chiefs Council said that there are “no exceptions that apply to protests and picketing in a Tier 4 area”.   The courts, however, may well think differently

Adam Wagner came up with a possible loophole, saying it may be possible for a protest to be held in a “public outdoor place” if that place is “operated by a business, charitable, benevolent or philanthropic institution” but NOT on other public land. The question is whether protest in such circumstances would be an unlisted “reasonable excuse” to leave or remain outside the home as the specific exception that applies to Tiers 1, 2 and 3 for protest (and picketing) has been removed for Tier 4. He believes it probably would be possible if the courts read together with Articles 10 and 11 (protest and freedom of association) of the European Convention on Human Rights, but it’s an open question.

By dispersing the weekly Piccadilly Assange protest on Saturday 19th December, the police were applying the new Tier 4 regulations preemptively. As a response, the WISE Up Action Network compiled a guide on protest under the new COVID regulations.

At the start of January, another 17 anti-lockdown protesters – again including Piers Corbyn – were arrested in London.

On 12 January, Netpol shared videos of Kent Police threatening fines against two asylum seekers holding up a bed-sheet banner in protest against worsening conditions at Napier Barracks, a Home Office processing centre in Folkestone.

COMMENT

These lockdowns reveal the UK’s true character: we are a nation of snitches, Joel Golby, The Guardian, 13 January 2021

Why is it still so difficult to challenge Covid fines?, Lizzie Dearden, The Independent, 12 January 2021

 

Both the Undercover Research Group and Netpol have been particularly busy in November with, respectively, the start of the Undercover Policing Inquiry and the launch of a new report on the policing of this summer’s Black Lives Matter protests. We have not had the capacity to update this blog as regularly as usual. This is, therefore, a summary of policing of coronavirus restrictions over the last month.

POLICING

The start of a new national lockdown has seen a much tougher attitude to protests than previously, with the right to freedom of assembly curtailed until current restrictions are lifted in December. On 5 November, police arrested 190 people during anti-lockdown protests that took place in central London; two days later Scotland Yard apologised for telling journalists and photographers to leave and threatening them with arrest. They were wrongly told they were not seen as essential workers and needed special permission from the Metropolitan police service (MPS) to be present.

On 13 November, Merseyside Police arrested 27 at a protest in Liverpool, and at another protest in the city on 21 November, a viral video shows the violent arrest of a protester who was punched repeatedly in the head by officers.

A £10,000 fine was issued to the organiser of a protest in Manchester and Northumbria Police dispersed a protest in Newcastle. In Brighton, a protest organiser has been summoned to court for a protest on 7 November. Five people were charged with offences in connection with another anti-lockdown protest in Bristol on 16 November, where Avon & Somerset Police used public order teams, the mounted unit, the dog section, a drone, body-worn cameras and CCTV at to police a demonstration of 400 people.

Merseyside Police are investigating a video showing anti-testing protesters shouting at pupils and harassing a teacher at a Liverpool school, one of the sites of a mass coronavirus testing operation that has been piloted in the city.

Just before the start of the latest lockdown, A qualified nurse was arrested and taken to a Hull police station after trying to take her 97-year-old mum out of a care home. By mid-November, it was reported that Gloucestershire Police were called out around 100 times to reports of lockdown breaches. In Lincoln, the police issued fines to two people who did not “have any good exemption or reason for being in Lincolnshire”. The owner of a venue in Bristol was given a £10,000 fine for the second time. In Manchester, £10,000 fines were issued after police shut down two warehouse parties in Salford and Bolton and a flat party in the city centre.

At the University of Manchester, students complained they had been imprisoned after fences were placed around their halls to pen them in, and residents were filmed by security. The students pulled the fences down and police riot vans descended on a Fallowfield campus protest. Two security guards also racially profiled a young black student, assaulting him as they repeatedly said that he looked like a campus drug dealer.

A woman reported received “life-changing injuries” after she was set upon by a police dog at an unauthorised rave outside of Bristol.

At around the same time, it was also reported that police forces across England and Wales were told to temporarily stop handing £10,000 on-the-spot fines to people holding gatherings of more than 30 people, over fears of unfairness between those who pay upfront and those who challenge the fee in court. The issuing of these “super fines” was, however, quickly resumed. Liberty and Big Brother Watch called for a review of these fines to ensure compliance with equality laws‘ and wrote to ten police forces with concerns of racial discrimination.

Freedom of Information data gathered by the PA news agency shows that in West Yorkshire, where police issued some of the highest numbers of fixed penalty notices to people caught breaching lockdown restrictions, 497 out of 756 fines issued between March 27 and September 21 (66 per cent) had not been paid within 28 days. In some part of the country, court hearings are, however, starting to take place.

While the restrictions for the holiday season get-togethers are still not finalised in late November, a month ago, David Jamieson, the West Midlands police and crime commissioner chief started warning that the police will enter homes and break up Christmas dinners if families break the lockdown rules, even if this would could serious riots.

Worryingly, COVID enforcement officers – who are not police officers – have been hired by councils that are granting spy powers to allow them to catch suspected rule-breakers. Privacy campaign group Big Brother Watch has said the enhanced roles amounted to ‘undercover officers’ who would be ‘spying’ on residents and only undermining public trust in efforts to enforce restrictions. Madeleine Stone, Legal and Policy Officer, said: ‘Hiring undercover officers to enforce guidance that has no legal basis is heavy-handed’. After BBW wrote to Brent Council, they removed a reference to ‘covert’ deployments from the Covid Enforcement Officer job descriptions.

LEGAL

Last month, Tristan Kirk reported on secret London prosecution of COVID-19 rule breakers. The court has since apologised and promised things will be different in the future. However, things have not changed for the better.

Westminster magistrates are using the Single Justice Procedure for these cases, behind-closed-doors with just a magistrate & legal advisor present in prosecutions for breaking the first coronavirus lockdown. In a long Twitter thread Kirk explains he has seen paperwork that shows:

• Convictions for offences people weren’t prosecuted for;
• Hefty fines handed out which may exceed the legal maximum;
• Police allowed to try again when paperwork is botched.

RESOURCES

Analysis of the lockdown regulations that came into force on 5 November for 28 days by Adam Wagner.

October Emergency Powers & Civil Liberties Report (.pdf) by Big Brother Watch, looking at the tier system, divergence across the four nations, government mass-monitoring of social distancing and police interference with protests.

A guide from The Scottish Activist Legal Project (SCALP) outlines the implications for campaign groups of the Scottish COVID-19 regulations, which came into force on 2 November.

The law firm Commons Legal has launched a free advice tool for people in England who’ve been fined under coronavirus regulations.

Coronavirus: When can I leave my home? Guide by Liberty, last updated 13 November.

COMMENT

Police Off Campus, Northern Police Monitoring Project on the policing of students in Manchester, 20 November.

Blaming Covid ‘rule-breakers’ is a distraction: support is needed, not fines. Until we start helping people instead of hectoring them, lockdown 2 will be at risk of falling apart, says Stephen Reicher, a member of the behavioural science advisory committee to Sage.

POLICING

The issuing of fixed penalty notices all over the country has ground relentlessly on over the last week. In Tyneside, police fined 12 members of a football team who told bar staff they were single household. Police broke up a student house party in Exeter on 24 October and in south-east London, the Metropolitan Police shut down a “secret wedding” with 250 guests. Six people from different households were fined at a house party in Runcorn after they were reported to the police by neighbours.

There have also been many reports of the issuing of higher-level fines. A house party with 40 people in Mansfield was shut down and the organiser was fined £10,000. It was reported that Cambridgeshire Police handed out two separate £10,000 fines to organisers of house parties in Peterborough. In Bristol, police are warning of a “crackdown” in the remaining months of 2020 and a club was fined for having 80 people inside after the 10pm curfew. Four students at the University of Nottingham, who we reported last month were threatened with potential enforcement action, have now each been given £10,000 fines.

The parties aside, in many of these instances people receiving fines said they did not understand the regulations. This is perhaps unsurprising as in evidence to MPs, the senior officer leading the national police response to the coronavirus pandemic, Owen Weatherill, said he too did not know the lockdown rules and that the three-tier system is too confusing.  Currently, each Tier is around 12,000 words of text, a mixture of micro-management of everyday lives and unresolvable ambiguity, although the minister for crime and policing, Kit Malthouse, recommended people go online to look up the measures and said everyone has an “individual duty towards” collective public health.

Over the last week, the government was already ‘considering Tier 4 local lockdowns‘, if the current system does not make a difference by mid-November. Tier 3 is still substantially lower level of lockdown than the 26 March regulations and Scotland has introduced a five-tier alert system.

On 24 October, there were 18 arrests made at the latest anti-lockdown protest in central London and at around 6pm the protesters were dispersed in the “interests of public safety”, according to a statement by the police. The day before, at Westminster Magistrates Court, lawyers for the prominent opponent of lockdown restrictions, Piers Corbyn, argued he had been “specifically targeted” by police. He was due to stand trial on Friday but late disclosure of police logbooks has delayed proceedings until 27 November.

Meanwhile, there were indications on social media that the organisers of a planned demonstration at the Polish Embassy in London, about the new abortion laws introduced in Poland, were leaned on heavily by police and initially cancelled the protest, although hundreds of people turned up anyway.

Over the weekend, the start of a two-week “firebreak” lockdown in Wales, Gwent Police reportedly stopped more than 500 vehicles and have been carrying out ”essential journey” spot-checks on trains. Police in neighbouring Gloucestershire, who have no power to stop people travelling to Wales, are informing their Welsh colleagues across the border who are able to issue fines. Gloucestershire has also seen the return of residents reporting concerns about tourists and a subsequent increase in the number of patrols in rural areas, which were common back in April. Police in North Yorkshire are once again urging outsiders not to visit during half-term

It has been reported that children going out “trick or treating” has been banned in Devon and Cornwall because of coronavirus (although not in Essex). Cornwall is also where 10 young adults were harassed playing beach volleyball by marshalls in Falmouth.

Meanwhile, recruitment firms have begun advertising for “Covid Marshals” around the country and as this example from Bedford shows, part of the role is “capturing and reporting evidence and intelligence of non-compliance” and “acting as ‘eyes and ears’ on the ground”. In Bedfordshire, there has already been a report in the last week of “fake covid marshalls” trying to get into a resident’s home to supposedly investigate breaches of the regulations.

LEGAL

On 22 October the Lords debated the Health Protection (Self-Isolation) Regulations – three weeks after they came into law. Big Brother Watch sent peers a briefing on these regulations – which could see people fined life-changing amounts for failing to follow convoluted rules, saying: “rather than ensuring that people have the local care and financial support they need to self-isolate, the Government is relying on punitive fines to compel compliance.”

RESOURCES

New book out 29 October: Alan Green, Emergency Powers in a Time of Pandemic.

POLICING

Yet another sign that the government is unable to abandon its public order approach to embrace a public health crisis one instead, is that the police will get access to the details of members of the public in England who have been told to self-isolate through NHS Test and Trace.

The BBC reported that this will happen on a “case-by-case basis”, according to a ‘memorandum of understanding’ agreed between the Department of Health and Social Care and the National Police Chiefs’ Council. The Guardian fears that it may deter people from getting tested for Covid-19 if forces get data.

However, the news on the police getting data from NHS contact tracing should not be confused with data from the app. The app only stores data locally, and cannot be accessed by the government or police. Furthermore,  a notification from the app does not trigger legal duty to self-isolate, just a moral duty. You cannot receive a fine or face a prosecution for disobeying it.  A long thread from Adam Wagner discussing this issue.

It has subsequently emerged that the police in Scotland will also have access to personal details from the Test and Protect scheme, despite assurances that data would only be used to trace contacts.

As London moves unto tier 2 of the government’s new three-tier classification of the level of localised infections, resulting in new restrictions, the Metropolitan Police has announced that its officers are “stepping up” their response to target people allegedly breaching coronavirus regulations, with additional patrols in the evenings near bars and pubs.

Last week, the Metropolitan Police threatened the Tudor Rose, a longstanding and popular venue in Southall, with a £10,000 fine for hosting what a senior officer called a ‘dangerous and foolish’ wedding.

In a sign of the confusion over the rules for venues, however, another venue that had a gathering broken up by police has complained that it had not broken rules on wedding parties because it had organised a “celebratory dinner” weeks after a wedding ceremony had taken place, stating that this was no different to people sitting in groups in a restaurant. This was also an event where the majority of the people were Asian.

During September, West Yorkshire Police reportedly had 130 fines of between £440 and £990 that “have been proven in people’s absence at court”. Only 21 people actually pleaded guilty to breaching rules.

On Merseyside, a tier-3 area, armed police were sent to issue a £1000 fine to a gym owner after he refused to shut his business. A number of gyms in Liverpool, facing similar police enforcement, are threatening legal action.

Confusingly, however, a gathering of hundreds in Liverpool city centre billed as a “mental health awareness rally” but in fact, a protest about the lockdown was deemed “lawful” by Merseyside Police.

In North Yorkshire, the police plan to launch a squad of “Covid cars” to provide a rapid response to public tip-offs about breaches of coronavirus regulations.

There has been a rash of local coverage giving instructions on how to report on neighbours allegedly breaking the rules in Sussex, in Lancashire, in Derbyshire, in Essex, and in Sheffield.

LEGAL

Individuals are still being unlawfully prosecuted under extreme lockdown laws and the Coronavirus Act. Even worse, as Tristan Kirk found out for the Evening Standard, Londoners accused of breaking the lockdown rules are being prosecuted behind closed doors and under a veil of secrecy.

OPINION

Police access to test-and-trace data is another blow to dwindling public trust in the government, Ian Hamilton, The Independent, 18 October 2020.

The College of Policing claims that the approach to coronavirus enforcement was ‘well received by commentators’ and was apparently based on science – using that roaring ‘success story’, stop and search powers, as its starting point.

RESOURCES

Michael Maggs has updated Wikipedia pages with the latest. Three new sets of COVID-19 Tier Regulations (SI 1103-5) that came into force in England on the 16th, including changes – such as Greater London ans some other regions moved to Tier2, before the rules even came into force – adding “They appear wilfully complicated!”

Barrister Adam Wagner made a video to fight the misinformation on how the legal duty to self-isolate works, what relevance of the NHS app has and how data can be used for prosecution.

POLICING

On 2 October it was reported that the Metropolitan Police had launched an investigation into Scottish National Party MP Margaret Ferrier, over alleged breaches of coronavirus rules that included travelling by train journey between London and Glasgow after receiving a positive Covid-19 test. Ten days on, she continues to resist calls to resign as an MP.

The Independent reported that, just as in mid-May, the police in parts of Britain are creating a “postcode lottery” by handing out coronavirus fines far more frequently in some areas than others.

Dorset Police fined five people after they held a party in Bournemouth attended by around 100 people. Warwickshire Police also plan to issue fines to people who attended two parties in Leamington Spa. Greater Manchester Police had a particularly busy weekend, handing out 85 fines across a region currently under specific local lockdown rules. In Cardiff, which also has a local lockdown, police were reported to have attended a party at an Airbnb property that had more than 30 people present.

In Dunstable, Bedfordshire Police are investigating a funeral attended by “between 400 to 500 people”, which would breach guidance stating only 30 mourners are allowed.

In Newcastle, the police say they have been called out to more than 500 reported incidents in the past two weeks.

A takeaway owner has been fined £1,000 by police for serving a single customer food four minutes after the 10pm curfew. Barrister Kirsty Brimelow QC commented that this type of draconian action by police “batters any remaining trust” that the public may have and that people can ill afford fines during this time.

Essex Police has fined 32 students at the University of Essex in Colchester for breaking coronavirus rules. Police are now reportedly patrolling the campus. There are similar patrols in Cambridge. In Nottingham, 10 students were fined after celebrating their negative test results with house parties in the city, which has the highest number of cases in England. They also now face the threat of disciplinary action by their universities.

In South Yorkshire, police have drawn up a guide to protesting while coronavirus restrictions are in place. They did so to “help cut through the complexities of attending large-scale events without breaking the law”, but emphasise the “threat of tough action” for anyone who fails to comply with police instructions, saying, “where protestors are not compliant, we may need to take action in the immediacy or film the situation in order to take action at a later date”.

In Kettering, the town’s CCTV network of cameras is used to monitor whether coronavirus laws are being complied and whether shoppers and bus passengers are wearing face masks.

Kent is also talking about placing artificial intelligence cameras which can be used to “monitor” social distancing in thirteen towns.

BigBrotherWatch found – as confirmed here – that the excessive contact tracing law has not been practised on the parliamentary estate – yet small businesses face fines for non-compliance, while older and low-income people who don’t use the NHS Covid-19 app are refused entry to premises.

LEGAL

Before everything will change again this week with the new Three-Tier System, some updates of the rules that were launched over the past ten days.

Latest changes (24 and 28 September) on opening hours and small gatherings, at the very useful wiki by Michael Maggs.

You can now get a £10,000 fine for breaking self-isolation rules. Barrister Adam Wagner explains the rules (which are complicated and onerous) in his Better Human podcast.

Wagner has also argued that Parliament should be given a prior vote on the new three-tier system and where it is initially to apply because the government said that significant measures would from now on be debated and voted in parliament. It seems unlikely this will happen.

And, the last time the government promised to simplify coronavirus regulations was when the Prime Minister said “the rule of 6” would simplify the rules on gatherings. The rule on gatherings was increased from 850 words to over 2,000 overnight…

RESOURCES

The joint Netpol and Undercover Research Group article “Villains of the Pandemic”, on the policing of coronavirus restrictions, is published in the current issue of the Socialist Lawyer magazine and now up on this blog 

When the Network for Police Monitoring (Netpol) and the Undercover Research Group started the “Policing The Corona State” diary¹ back in March to document the policing of Britain’s coronavirus state of emergency, neither of us really expected that months later, we would still need to continue updating it.

Regularly checking the local and national media, press releases from campaigners and the latest statistics from the police has, however, helped us to achieve what we set out to, which was to provide a week-by-week snapshot of issues we had definitely anticipated: the arbitrary use of police powers. Looking back, the lockdown and the way it has been policed may arguably have helped to create the exact conditions both for Black Lives Matter protests in Britain and for the prospects of growing social unrest after restrictions are lifted.

From the beginning, it was apparent that the police intended to handle the pandemic as a public order rather than a public health crisis. Instead of focusing on information, support and solutions such as building networks of care to deal with a situation that was completely new to all of us, senior officers treated a frightened and anxious public, first and foremost, as suspects and potential criminals. It did not seem to matter that public opinion had dragged the government into introducing quarantine measures in the first place.

Even before the passing of public health regulations and the Coronavirus Act into law in late March, police officers had already begun to impose lockdown measures, stopping motorists from travelling and warning train travellers, “we don’t want to see you again tomorrow”. Derbyshire Police launched “proactive” patrols that included cars equipped with loudhailers ordering people indoors and on 26 March, the day the new state of emergency formally began, it was widely criticised for using drones in the Peak District to shame people who had been outdoors.

Right from the start, we also saw the police establishing online portals enabling people to denounce their neighbours for alleged breaches of lockdown rules. Humberside, on day one, was the first. By early May, the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) said that forces had received a staggering 194,000 such “snitching” calls.

Once the lockdown was in place, there was complete confusion over how often people could take exercise, when they could travel, whether “shopping for non-essential items” was illegal and what the difference was between government advice and the law. The inevitable result was arbitrary decisions and a flurry of fines: Lancashire Police issued 123 in the first few days.

The police had, however, dramatically misread the public mood and within a week, the introduction of NPCC guidelines was seen as a partial retreat from many police forces enthusiastically interpreting government advice on what a ‘reasonable excuse’ for leaving home in whatever way they wanted.

This did not, however,. halt the inconsistent and unfair use of police powers. On 2 April we reported the unlawful arrest of a Black woman who had refused to give her name when stopped by British Transport Police in Newcastle and who was tried and convicted – in her absence from the court – for an offence that applies only to people who are potentially infected. A 13 year old child in Leeds had, by this stage, already been detained under the same unlawful interpretation of these powers. Over a month later, in our 15-17 May diary entry, we reported on news that a Crown Prosecution Service review had found all prosecutions under the Coronavirus Act had been unlawful.

As Easter approached in mid April, there was the first of another recurring aspect of the lockdown: the apocalyptic advanced warnings that the public were failing to listen to government advice, followed soon afterwards by ample evidence that the opposite was true.

Over the Easter Bank Holiday weekend, police chiefs were already complaining that they were seen by the public as the “villains of the pandemic”, just as they prepared to force hundreds of people to return home. This was the weekend a police van in south London was spotted driving around a largely empty park blaring out the instruction, “no sunbathing… exercise only”. In Glasgow, a disabled woman returning home with very heavy groceries was threatened with a fine for sitting down to rest because she “wasn’t exercising”. More dramatically, Netpol shared a series of videos from an incident in Fallowfield in Manchester showing the violent arrest of a man who was delivering food to his mother.

By this stage, it had become obvious, as the French journal Le Monde diplomatique noted in June in its assessment of Britain’s quarantine measures², that in urban areas “those who own their own homes… have generally been able to weather lockdown… but the greater number who lives in flats have struggled to maintain good mental health in compressed domestic spaces.”

Public parks and outdoor spaces suddenly became even more essential to our health and well-being, especially in cities like London where almost half of homes are either purpose-built flats or cramped house conversions. In July, the think-tank Resolution Foundation reported³ that younger age groups are more likely to live in a damp home, have no garden or to live in a derelict or congested neighbourhood than older generations. Black, Asian and ethnic minority children in England are more than twice as likely as white children to live in a home with no garden.

Only a few weeks into the lockdown was the point, however, when there was widespread frustration over the decision to close Brockwell Park, a 126-acre public space in south London, because of contested social distancing infractions. On 7 April, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Cressida Dick, gave a statement saying that people who refused to leave public spaces would be forced to. The same day, we reported on a large group of officers disrupting (and kicking) people practising yoga in London Fields in Hackney, on the basis that this was “pretending to exercise”. Our diary has subsequently documented numerous other incidents of this kind. Yet again, however, it was public pressure and condemnation that forced authorities to reopen these public spaces within a matter of days.

That first month exposed for many how the role of the police is invariably less about solving crime and more about imposing whatever the government of the day decides is the prevailing social order. Senior officers were implementing the sweeping powers they had been given in the way that they thought ministers wanted them to, rather than on the basis of what the law actually says, let alone on common sense. At the same time, calls to check on situations likely to lead to genuine and serious risks of increasing the spread of infection, such as on building sites or in the garment industry in Leicester, were completely ignored.

It was increasingly apparent, too, that the rules were not applied fairly or equally. There was (and remains) enormous focus on Dominic Cummings, the Prime Minister’s chief advisor, travelling from London to his parents’ home in Durham while suspected of having the coronavirus. One scientific advisor to the government said at the time that it had “trashed all the advice we have given on how to build trust and secure adherence to the measures necessary to control COVID-19”.

However, perhaps the moment that caused more widespread public damage for the police’s credibility came a month earlier. This was at the high point of the rigorous and often arbitrary enforcement of social distancing and movement restrictions in parks and beauty spots around the country. There was universal condemnation of police officers gathering on Westminster Bridge to ‘Clap For Carers’ in flagrant disregard for these same rules. It was difficult to argue that this police behaviour was the result of a lack of supervision, when the Metropolitan Police Commissioner herself was present in person.

As the Cummings affair dominated the news, it was already clear too in May that police in some parts of the country were handing out up to 26 times more coronavirus lockdown fines than officers in others amid a “postcode lottery” of enforcement. Another indicator of unfairness and inequality was the ethnicity breakdown of fines that were issued. In the 2-3 May entry of our diary, we expressed concerns that the NPCC in reporting demographic data was downplaying the disproportionate fining of people from Black and particularly Asian communities. In our 26-27 May entry, we highlighted confirmation of this: Black, Asian and minority communities in England are 54% more likely to be fined under coronavirus rules than white people, according to an analysis by Liberty⁴. At the start of June, figures from the Metropolitan Police showed 48.6% were issued to Black or Asian Londoners.

With so much attention on the use of new emergency powers, it has been important to remember that much of every day policing remained business as usual. This included detaining people on fabricated charges: a viral video was widely circulated showing a Lancashire Police officer, later suspended, threatening to arrest a young man, saying “who are they going to believe, me or you?”

Anecdotally, we were also hearing stories that under the cloak of the lockdown, the police were increasingly targeting young black men for drugs-related searches, often very aggressively. In mid May this was confirmed by stop and search figures from the Metropolitan Police showing a surge in the use of these existing police powers during the lockdown, a rise of 22%. Two-thirds of these stops were for drugs and the number of stops per 100,000 increased from 7.2 to 9.3 for Black people.

Were senior officers aware of the growing resentment at this combination of disproportionate and confrontational policing? As the first steps towards easing the lockdown started in May, there was widespread coverage given to police unions complaining about how the new rules meant the police’s “hands were tied” over issuing fines. They seemed to resent limits on the use of these powers, but what this also appeared to reflect was uncertainty among senior officers about what the government wanted or that they retained public support. The one area where the Home Office was clear was in offering vocal political support for public order interventions against large gatherings – from raves to block parties and initially, anyone taking part in protests.

What nobody could have predicted, however, was the spread of global solidarity over the death of George Floyd in police custody in the US and how, even amidst fears of infection from the coronavirus, this captured the imagination in particular of young Black people in Britain who had never taken part in a protest before.

The reasons why Black Lives Matter protests took off will undoubtedly keep academics busy for years. However, it does seem reasonable to us to conclude that one key factor was the opportunity handed to British police forces – by the most sweeping restrictions on civil liberties for generations – to exacerbate unfair, disproportionate, often violent and invariably discriminatory policing.

Arguably more than many other recent protests, the demonstrations that started in London and Cardiff at the end of May were in many instances as much about protesters’ own experiences as they were about one man’s horrifying death thousands of miles away in Minnesota. Despite all the petty indignities we have documented in rural areas, it has been racist policing in cities that has come up time and again in the diary entries we produced. After two months of police constantly harassing young people, especially from Black and other minority communities, on urban streets and in public spaces under rules that were often incomprehensible, many had simply had enough.

As Adam Elliott-Cooper of The Monitoring Group, discussing the huge Black Lives Matter protests all over Britain on 8 June told Sky News: “If Met police chiefs are so concerned about social distancing, then why were stop and searches at a nine-year high last month – spreading the virus for the sake of small quantities of cannabis?”

What seemed to reinforce the idea that, despite claiming to have listened to the demands of the Black Lives Matter movement, the police have learnt almost nothing from the three months of lockdown, was the use of tactics against protests that were excessive and unlawful, followed by racially stereotypical depictions of mainly Black protesters as “violent thugs”.

We have documented how the same language is used repeatedly in the increasingly dire warnings that lockdown parties “could provoke considerable unrest”, culminating in the police clashing with residents in Brixton and Tottenham and with people arrested and officers injured. We have reported too on how, instead of de-escalation, the police have chosen to fuel the fear of a repeat of the London 2011 riots.

As early as 20 April, Chief Superintendent Paul Griffiths, president of the Police Superintendents’ Association, was warning that police must prepare for a “more volatile and agitated society” after the end of the lockdown. If this prediction becomes true, there is one conclusion that future researchers might draw from the dozens of diary entries we have written. The policing of the lockdown, driven by a reflex instinct to impose order as the government’s public health strategy became increasingly chaotic, may have contributed directly to making an agitated society more likely.

Kevin Blowe is the coordinator of the Network for Police Monitoring (Netpol) and a member of the Haldane Society. Eveline Lubbers is a researcher for the Undercover Research Group.

1 https://policing-the-corona-state.blog/

2“UK coexists with coronavirus”, Rowland Atkinson, Le Monde diplomatique English edition, June 2020

3“Lockdown living: Housing quality across the generations”, The Resolution Foundation, 3 July 2020

4“BAME people disproportionately targeted by coronavirus fines”, Mirren Gidda, Liberty Investigates, 26 May 2020

POLICING

From Monday 28 September, police were granted extra powers, including self-isolation “spot checks” in high-risk areas based on “local intelligence” (neighbours reporting on each other), as new local lockdowns and more fines from £1000 to £10,000 come into force in England. For instance, you can now get a £10,000 fine for breaking self-isolation rules. The new rules are here and some explanation is set out in this thread.

On 30 September the government issued new restrictions for the north-east and north-west of England which effectively come down to local lockdowns. Banning gatherings of more than two households and… singing in groups of more than 2 in a “public house, café, restaurant or bar”.

On 28 September, after repeated encouragement from ministers (including Home Secretary Priti Patel) to inform on neighbours for alleged breaches of coronavirus rules, the government made it an offence with a £1000 fine for “falsely stating … that someone is a close contact of a person who has tested positive for coronavirus”, making it illegal to maliciously attempt to use the system to force an enemy into self-isolation.

As Netpol noted, this is almost a belated recognition that treating neighbours like the “enemy” isn’t the best way “to encourage community self-help, mutual aid and solidarity – all the values the public was praised for at the start of the lockdown”.

Since the introduction of huge fines for large gatherings, the NPCC says 20 fixed penalty notices have been issued for holding a gathering of more than thirty people. Since our last blog entry, these include a fine for a wedding celebration at a marquee on land on the outskirts of Leeds, another wedding venue in Shropshire, another in Manchester and a music event in Liverpool.

Two Police Scotland officers turned up at a 10-year-old girl’s birthday party after a neighbour reported the family for allegedly breaking coronavirus rules. Her mum is now on an “alert list”.

There were press reports of mounting pressure on the government to review its ‘shambolic’ 10pm curfew, which began on 24 September,  after drinkers crowded onto streets at closing time. The Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) did not model the effect of a 10pm curfew, with key members saying that there was no evidence that it would be effective. In Glasgow city centre, a ‘street party’ after 10pm was dispersed by police and on the day after the curfew began, fireworks and bricks were thrown at police trying to disperse a gathering with around 500 people in Castleford in West Yorkshire.

On 24 September, a woman was fined £10,000 for taking part in an anti-lockdown protest in Norwich city centre. A further four people were arrested for alleged breaches of coronavirus regulations at an anti-lockdown protest in Newcastle city centre.

On Saturday 26 September, police in riot gear made 16 arrests as they cracked down on a much larger anti-lockdown protest in Trafalgar Square. This photo by AFP and a video of a woman knocked to the ground were widely circulated on social media:

This prompted one conservative website, which has previously called for the curbing of environmental and Black Lives Matter protests, to condemn the “shocking police attack on free speech“.

On 30 September, the National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC) released new figures on the policing of coronavirus regulations, which confirm that in total 18,912 fixed penalty notices were recorded as issued in England and Wales between Friday 27 March and Monday 21 September. A total of 179 were for localised restrictions in England, with 128 were issued in Greater Manchester, 26 in Lancashire and 25 in Leicester.

There were just 28 fines issued for failing to wear a face-covering in a relevant place, such as a retail setting. In the last week, it was reported that two people were fined by police for not wearing masks in a shop in Shrewsbury.

The NPCC has also confirmed that there has been mass non-payment of coronavirus fines, which is likely to place a further strain on the courts with potentially thousands of extra hearings. According to NPCC figures, a total of 8,441 (53%) have not paid in England and 972 (36%) have not paid in Wales.

LEGAL

Netpol is part of a coalition of human rights groups and charities calling on MPs to scrap the Coronavirus Act. The law has been wrongly used to prosecute 141 people. This is the joint statement:

However, on 30 September, MPs voted to extend the government’s coronavirus powers by 330 votes to 24, with many critics failing to vote. This decision was condemned by Liberty and by Big Brother Watch, who also complained that only 90 minutes had been allowed for the Coronavirus Act debate.

COMMENT

The Coronavirus Act is an attack on our liberties. MPs must seize this chance to scrap it, Martha Spurrier, The Guardian, 29 Sep 2020.

Covid-19: Will our right to protest ever be fully returned? Marco Peronlini, The New European, 29 Sep 2020.

Be warned: the Government is using the pandemic as an excuse to grab more power, Caroline Lucas, Metro, 30 Sep 2020.

Coronavirus Has Created A Crisis Of Over-Policing. Parliament Must Act Now – Before It’s Too Late, Madeleine Stone, Huffington Post, 30 Sep 2020.

There was another avalanche of changes in the coronavirus regulations over the last week, in advance of predictions of the second wave of infections and the next lockdown looming. While we will point at good summaries here, our concern is – as ever – the enforcement by the police.

There remains a complete lack of lessons learned from the earlier lockdown and the government is still approaching the pandemic as a public order issue, rather than a health crisis. This – again – means threats, fines and a push to for the public to snitch on each other, rather than a focus on solidarity, community support and a serious effort to solve access to health care.

Unfortunately, this also means there is a need to continue this blog, to log abuse by the police and misunderstandings of the regulation.

Coercion failed before, it was rightly seen as arbitrary, unfair and in many cases unlawful, but Boris Johnson now says the military could help to enforce the new corona rules.

LEGAL

Since Monday, new rules apply: see What are the new coronavirus restrictions? – an explainer from the BBC that includes the rules for pubs and restaurants.

Any social gathering of more than six people in England is against the law, with people facing fines of up to £3,200 if they do not abide by the new measure, which applies to both indoor and outdoor settings.

On Wednesday, the English face-covering regulations changed again. From Thursday, 24th September, shopworkers and other staff who come into contact with the public are now required to wear a covering. All penalties are doubled to £200. The updated Wikipedia page includes the exemptions.

Parliament is due to the consider the renewal of coronavirus legislation but a cross-party group of MPs has threatened to block powers of detainment. Big Brother Watch has launched a campaign calling for people to lobby their MPs for a repeal of these powers under Schedule 21 of the Coronavirus Act.

Parliament’s Joint Committee on Human Rights published a report on the human rights implications of COVID19 measures on 21 September. The report is the most comprehensive account to date of the human rights issues which have occurred over the lockdown. Its conclusions cover the ambiguity and mixed messaging of government communications; the discrepancy between guidance and regulations; the lack of clarity from ministers; the lack of public understanding; policing and prosecution issues; fixed penalty notices and the egregious lack of an appeal process; the use of emergency powers and the detrimental impact on the right to protest.

With regard to the key focus of this blog, the report says on policing:

“… it is imperative that Government provide sufficient warning of changes to the law, and coordinate with appropriate bodies, so that police forces and bodies such as the NPCC [National Police Chiefs Council] and CoP [College of Policing] have time to understand and explain those changes.”

On fixed penalty notices, it says:

“There is currently no realistic way for people to challenge FPNs which can now result in fines of over £10,000 in some cases. This will invariably lead to injustice as members of the public who have been unfairly targeted with an FPN have no means of redress and police will know that their actions are unlikely to be scrutinised. The Government should introduce a means of challenging FPNs by way of administrative review or appeal.”

See summary in an extensive thread by barrister Adam Wagner (who worked on the report) including the recommendations.

POLICING

As Netpol noted, we have moved from mutual aid to mutual mistrust: six months of relying on coercion to control the spread of coronavirus has led to police apparently inundated with calls from members of the public reporting their neighbours for “rule of six” breaches.

With over 500 reports of people reporting on their neighbours for allegedly breaking #Covid_19 rules in the West Midlands in one week, the local Police & Crime Commissioner wants more powers to allow officers to enter people’s homes if they suspect there is a breach.

From 28 September, people failing to self-isolate if testing positive for the coronavirus or if contacted by the test and trace system will face fines starting at £1000. Again, police will target “offenders in high-incidence areas” based on neighbours snitching on each other.

Greater Manchester Police received intelligence regarding a wedding party in Wythenshawe. Police attended and found that a gazebo had been erected in the garden of a property. Officers prevented the illegal gathering before restrictions were breached.

COMMENT

Under cover of coronavirus, the Tory government is bulldozing basic liberties. John Harris in The Guardian. The Tories have been increasing police powers, bringing in new laws by diktat and sowing mistrust. When will the left speak up?

Renewing emergency Covid powers threatens ‘rights and freedoms’, Liberal Democrats leader Ed Davey tell Boris Johnson, The Independent.

Parliament surrendered role over Covid emergency laws, says Lady Hale, The Guardian.