Equalities chief who broke lockdown with 2nd home trip
BRITAIN’S top equalities chief was facing an investigation last night after being ordered by police to leave her second home in Wales for breaching lockdown rules.
Rebecca Hilsenrath, who has previously warned that rules to curb the pandemic threaten ‘hard won freedoms’ which are the ‘framework’ of our lives, travelled for four hours from her home in Hertfordshire to the coastal beauty spot before Christmas.
At the time, outsiders were only being allowed into Wales with a ‘reasonable excuse’ in order to reduce rocketing Covid infections – with taking a holiday explicitly ruled out as a valid exception.
Mrs Hilsenrath, 55, chief executive of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, was spoken to twice by police after locals in Llanegryn, West Wales, reported her presence. She returned to her main home 220 miles away on Christmas Day. The £125,000a-year lawyer was yesterday facing the threat of disciplinary action after the quango’s chairman, Baroness Falkner, said: ‘She has apologised for this error of judgement. I will establish all the facts before deciding if further action is required.’
Mrs Hilsenrath was appointed in 2017 to head the body, which enforces legislation outlawing discrimination on grounds including race, religion, gender or sexuality.
She is understood to have travelled to Llanegryn on December 18, a day after Health Secretary Matt Hancock announced that Hertfordshire was moving into Tier Three restrictions. Her 61-year-old husband Michael had reportedly already been at the property for a week.
The couple have owned the single-storey home – created from a row of old workers’ cottages – since 2010, and it is now worth around £230,000. Because the rules covering Hertfordshire did not come into effect until December 19 Mrs Hilsenrath was not in breach of the Welsh government ban on people living in English Tier Three areas coming into the country. But at the time its guidance said ‘travel into Wales is not allowed without a reasonable excuse’.
When Wales went in to lockdown on December 20 its government directed anyone who did not live there full time to leave immediately. It was this guidance that Mrs Hilsenrath did not follow until it was pointed out to her by police, The Times reported.
Mrs Hilsenrath said she had already promised to leave before police visited the couple for a second time. ‘I would like to apologise to the local community if I have caused anyone concern or worry,’ she said.
‘I travelled to our home in Wales before lockdown in the belief it was allowed. We did not realise that lockdown necessitated or even permitted our departure.’