JAILED FOR BUYING LUNCH
WELDERS BROKE SELF-ISOLATION LAW WHEN THEY STOPPED AT TESCO ON WAY TO ISLE OF MAN HOTEL
FIVE welders from Yorkshire were each jailed for two weeks for breaking selfisolation laws after stopping off at Tesco to ‘buy lunch’ when they arrived on the Isle of Man.
The men, aged between 18 and 62, caught a ferry to the island on September 29. They were due to be doing two days of maintenance work on the Manx Electric Railway for Haigh Rail.
Instead of going straight from the port to their hotel, the group – who were all wearing masks – went to a Tesco store to buy some food, a wife of one of the welders said. A local alleg
edly heard one of the group say: ‘I’ve just got off the boat’ – and reported them to a member of staff.
The men, required under local laws to self-isolate for two weeks before starting work, were arrested later that night and led away from their hotel in handcuffs. The five, from Doncaster, all pleaded guilty to failing to comply with Covid-19 restrictions under the Emergency Powers Act. They were Luke Fletcher, 22, Robbie Rhodes, 18, Jack
Smith, 18, and his father Michael Smith, 43, and Christopher Lafayette, 62. They are due to be released from prison today and sent back to the mainland – and banned from the island for good.
Michael Smith’s wife Helen told the Mirror: ‘They only wanted to get some sandwiches for their lunch.
‘They’ve been treated like serious criminals when the sensible thing was to have a word in their ear.’
Luke Fletcher’s mother Lisa slammed coronavirus rules as so confusing that ‘even the politicians don’t know them’.
She added: ‘But you’d never expect in a million years that going to Tesco to buy food would land you in jail.’