If we faced fine for dinner with friends, then so should Sir Keir
A COUPLE fined £1,000 for having dinner with two friends in lockdown yesterday hit out at police for treating Keir Starmer more leniently than ‘normal people like us’.
They were penalised for an incident a few weeks before, and a few miles from, the infamous ‘Beergate’ curry in Durham.
Officers ignored their explanation for socialising with far fewer people than was the case for the Labour leader.
Chris Brown, 32, and wife Gemma, 37, went to another couple’s house for a steak dinner and a few drinks in March last year. But during the evening two police officers knocked on the door saying they had been told 18 people were partying inside.
Mrs Brown said they invited the officers in to show them only four people were present and explained their hosts were a support bubble for her husband because of his mental health problems. He was being treated for depression following the death of a close friend.
All four later received letters informing them they had been fined £200 for breaching Covid regulations.
Mrs Brown, a beauty therapist and mother of two, initially contested the fine believing they had not broken the law last March 6. She paid £560 in February after bailiffs came to her house.
Her husband pleaded not guilty to breaking Covid laws when the case came before Newton Aycliffe magistrates last Friday. However, the window and door installer changed his plea to guilty when he found he could end up paying out more than £1,000 if he lost.
He was fined £200 and ordered to pay £200 costs and a £34 surcharge. Mrs Brown said: ‘It’s different for people in power as they get away with it. The police wouldn’t deal with them in the same way as us normal people.
‘It has cost us £1,000 to have dinner with two friends. You can go to work with a group of people but can’t have a drink with two friends.
‘We didn’t believe we had committed a crime and didn’t think we had done anything wrong. We were bubbled up because of Chris’s mental health. He was suffering a lot, not being able to see people apart from me.’
She said the two officers did not take their arguments seriously.
The couple live in Burnhope, near Durham, and visited their friends three miles away in Stanley at a time when restrictions banned indoor socialising.
Mrs Brown said Sir Keir should still receive a fine and criticised the Prime Minister for breaking Covid rules: ‘They put the restrictions in place and they should practise what they preach.’