Ten times more Covid fines in half the time
‘TOLERANCE IS WEARING THIN’ SAYS POLICE COMMISSIONER
NOTTINGHAMSHIRE’S police and crime commissioner says “tolerance is wearing thin” after a spike in fines for breaking Covid rules.
More than 1,600 fines were issued in the last three months – ten times more than in the first six months of restrictions.
On top of the fixed penalty notices, 12 £10,000 fines have been issued to party organisers, one of which has been paid – with the others going through the legal system.
Most people being fined are under 30, and most of them are men.
Sixty-eight people have been fined for travelling into the city or county from outside Nottinghamshire for nonessential reasons.
Police and Crime Commissioner Paddy Tipping said: “Most people are behaving responsibly and reasonably, but there’s a small group of people who aren’t.
“We are now 10 months into the pandemic, and I know it’s been a bit confusing at times, but people should know the rules by now, this is a deep crisis, and the view of the police, the Home Secretary and myself is that this is perhaps the hardest month and that we’re going to enforce rather more vigorously than we have in the past.
“We’re not joking. This is a life-anddeath situation. We’ve all got mums and dads, we’ve all got grandmas and grandpas.
“These offenders are putting people at risk and tolerance is wearing a little thin.
“I think here in Nottinghamshire by the end of next week we hopefully will be through the peak of hospital admissions and deaths.
“I think we’re getting near the plateau now, and up to that point and beyond we will continue to take a tough and vigorous line.”
Assistant Chief Constable
Steve Cooper said: “We had a really slow start to the enforcement. When the legislation first came in, in March last year, we really did look to use the first three Es (engage, explain encourage)
“But to give an idea since the first of October last year we’ve issued 1,600 fixed penalty notices, compared to the 160 we issued in the first six months.
“So we have moved on from the engagement and into enforcement much quicker.
“Of those 1,600 fixed penalty notices 80 percent have been to under 30 year olds, 62 percent have been to males, and 31 of that number have been to repeat offenders.
“So we aren’t seeing significant numbers of repeat offenders, but 31 is obviously far too many.”
Mr Cooper added that one individual had breached the rules five times in six days and confirmed 68 fines issued in the city were to people living outside Notts.
Twelve £10,000 fines have also been issued and one has so far been paid, for a student house party at the start of Tier 4.
He added: “New Year’s Eve was totally different to any New Year’s Eve we’ve ever seen.
“We issued 130 fixed penalty notices that night and one £10,000 fine.
“During the lull in the pandemic over the summer months, in July and August, when we had such things as Eat Out To Help Out, we didn’t issue a single ticket.
“People were largely free to do a lot of what they wished to do, and we didn’t see any blatant breaches. “When we saw the spike come up in October, we went up to issuing 172, and then in November when we were in the peak of Tier 3/Tier 4 lockdown territory, we issued 506, so it just shows how we go in a very steep curve depending on what the threat and risk of harm is showing us.”
People should know the rules by now. We’re notjoking. This is a lifeand-death situation
Paddy Tipping