Evil spirit in letter of law

WHAT a storm in a teacup over the two women fined when they took hot drinks on their walk around a reservoir.

But there’s one aspect of this story that should set alarm bells jangling for anyone who fears we are sleepwalking into a police state – Derbyshire Police’s claim that the friends were not acting “in the spirit” of the law.

What does that mean? And what hellish fate awaits us if police are able to not just enforce the law, but decide whether we have displayed the right “spirit”. The law in this instance, as it applies to England, is actually straightforward. You are permitted to leave home to go for exercise – as the Prime Minister proved when he cycled seven miles away from Downing Street at the Olympic Park. Mercifully, most people saw sense over that one and there was no hue and cry about it.

The truth is simple – if the law permits it, it doesn’t fall to cops to forbid it.

As Health Secretary Matt Hancock sought to justify the police’s blunder it was announced the £200 fines handed to the reservoir walkers (inset) would be refunded.

Clearly, Mr Hancock was unaware of the details of the restrictions for which he has supposedly so earnestly and ceaselessly lobbied. To repeat – no crime had been committed here.

If you expected to hear contrition from the Government after this clear assault on our civil liberties, you were sadly wrong.

Save for marching up to the podium at a Downing Street briefing wielding a pickaxe handle, Home Secretary Priti Patel couldn’t have been more strident in setting out her position.

She barked: “My message to anyone refusing to do the right thing is simple.

“If you do not play your part, our selfless police officers will enforce the regulations and I will back them.” So now we can add “the right thing” to “the spirit” of the law. Has the penny dropped yet? Our police don’t just uphold the law, they must now enforce the Government’s wishes as if they were the law.