“We really need people to work with us and comply with the legislation.“ says Greater Manchester’s Chief Constable as the region prepares to head into Tier 3 lockdown.

Chief Constable Ian Hopkins says that up to now, The vast majority of people have done that throughout.

“Yes, there’s a hardocre who’ve ignored it and don’t think it relates to them, and that’s where our focus has been in terms of enforcement.” adding
“But if the vast majority of people comply, that will help to reduce social contact, and that’s what’s needed to reduce the infection rate.”

The Chief Constable explained that their policing stance throughout has been the four Es – to engage, to explain, to encourage people to comply and only enforce where necessary.

CC Hopkins said that the force issued 23 £1,000 fines to people for failing to self-isolate on their return from international travel.

“We’ve got one individual who is up to – because of the cumulative effect of fixed penalty notices – a £,3100 fine.
We’ve got one house that have got eight fixed penalty notices to individuals, including three to one individual. The local authority is looking at a closure order on that premises.

We’ve issued five £1,000 fines for premises staying open after 10pm, and we have issued one £10,000 fine for a rave at an Indian restaurant which hosted a wedding reception in Longsight involving live music.”

On the issue of restaurants having mixed households, the Chief Constable said that onus for that is on the businesses to make sure that they aren’t taking bookings from people outside of other households, and that they are taking reasonable steps to check.

“Clearly when we do those licensed premises visits, it’s local authority led, to check businesses are complying with those things.We’ve already seen – the football team – so I think we are seeing business owners wanting to make sure they are compliant, and where they’ve got evidence that people aren’t complying with restrictions I think we will see people starting to report it.”

Asked if that a 999 matter from a pub’s perspective?

“No, what we’ve said throughout is contact us on 101 or online we can always deal with it afterwards if necessary. And as I said, we are doing licensed premises checks… but no, please don’t ring 999 for breaches of coronavirus legislation.”

He added:

“If it was a huge gathering, or there was serious disorder or other criminal offences taking place, and it’s happening immediately, then please contact us. But if you’re reporting that somebody’s having a party or that a licensed premises is keeping people beyond the 10pm curfew then that isn’t something you should be contacting us on 999 with.”

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