Trip from Essex to pick up pet chinchilla among lockdown breaches

A COUPLE drove down to Devon from Essex ‘to pick up a chinchilla’ in a blatant breach of Covid-19 lockdown rules, a police officer has revealed.

The couple were stopped by police on the A38 into Devon and Cornwall during lockdown after driving more than 200 miles from Essex to reportedly pick up the pet.

Chinchillas, which originate in the Andes mountains in South America, can be pricey to buy, due to the housing equipment required. They can also live for up to 20 years, though on average they only survive 10.

Given ‘buying a chinchilla’ is not on Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s list of essential reasons people can travel during the coronavirus Covid19 pandemic lockdown the police intervened.

Under current UK Covid-19 restrictions people must ‘stay at home’ and not travel, including abroad, unless they have a legally permitted reason to do so. It is illegal to travel abroad for holidays and other leisure purposes. People can take exercise in the local area.

Britain’s Got Talent host Amanda Holden was forced to apologise through her agent at the weekend after she travelled from London to Cornwall to see her parents.

However it was later deemed she would not be fined by police, as despite her journey not being in ‘the spirit of the law’, emergency trips are allowed if a person’s welfare is in doubt.

A request made by the Cornish Guardian and sister website CornwallLive under the Freedom of Information Act revealed people from all over the country have been caught travelling to Cornwall during the third coronavirus lockdown.

In all, 42 lockdown breach offences were recorded by Devon and Cornwall Police in the Duchy in the 19 days from January 6 to 24, including one person who had driven hundreds of miles from Essex to “collect a cat”.

Others included seven people who had travelled 300 miles from Brighton to Falmouth to rent a house and “celebrate”, a driver from Scotland who “would not confirm the purpose of journey or why they were in Cornwall”, and a person from London who had travelled to the county to “take photos”.

Regarding the chinchilla, the police officer said: “We did stop a vehicle once and a couple had driven down from Essex to collect a chinchilla they had bought.”