Up to 20 Melburnians hit with $5000 lockdown fines

Up to 20 Melburnians have been caught trying to flee the city since coronavirus restrictions were eased in regional Victoria last week.

Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Shane Patton said on 3AW radio yesterday between 10 and 20 people had so far been hit with almost A$5000 ($5400) fines for the new offence of failing to comply with the requirement to remain in a restricted area.

Patton said seven of those were issued in the first 36 hours after the new A$4957 fine came into force on Thursday.

Of those caught trying to escape the city was a man who drove more than 50km from Coburg to Bacchus Marsh on Sunday to buy groceries.

Patton said he was hit with the huge fine when he was stopped at the Bacchus Marsh checkpoint on his way to the shops.

He said about 40 people had also been given A$4957 fines for breaching their self-isolation requirements since that infringement was introduced in early August.

Another 40 to 50 people have been hit with A$1652 fines for isolation breaches.

Patton said police would continue handing out fines for “deliberate, obvious and blatant” breaches of the chief health officer’s directions.

He also slammed the “selfish, ridiculous” protesters who continued to drain police resources with illegal anti-lockdown demonstrations on weekends.

Patton wouldn’t be drawn on whether police were winning in their battle of trying to stop the protests after two bizarre and largely failed attempts on Saturday and Sunday.

“Everybody loses when you have a groupcome out into the community even if only for a brief period of time because we don’t know what impact they’re having on the spread of the virus,” Patton said.

He said it was a “fairly expensive exercise” but police needed to cater for the worst-case scenario, which meant hundreds of police out patrolling the city each weekend.

Police arrested 16 protesters and fined 21 people after crowds flocked to Elsternwick Park and Elwood Beach on Saturday, while two were arrested and six fined at Chadstone Shopping Centre on Sunday.

— news.com.au