UK police criticized for overzealous lockdown response
Some British police may have gone a "little too far", a minister said on Tuesday after warnings some forces were turning Britain right into a police state by abusing powers to enforce a coronavirus lockdown.
New regulations earned on Thursday give police the energy to issue instant 30-pound ($37) fines to persons who gather in groups of more than two people or leave their homes without justification such as for example for work, food-shopping or exercise.
However, some officers have already been accused of being overzealous through the use of drones to spy on persons walking at beauty spots, stopping dog-walkers from driving their pets to open spaces and reports that they had even urged some shops never to sell Easter eggs because these were not essential items.
"The tradition of policing in this country is that policemen are citizens in uniform, they aren't members of a disciplined hierarchy operating just at the government's command," Jonathan Sumption, a former UK Supreme Court judge, told the BBC. "This is exactly what a police state is similar to. It's a state in which the government can issue orders or express preferences without legal authority and the authorities will enforce ministers' wishes."
Unlike other countries, forces in Britain "police by consent" and pride themselves on being answerable to the general public rather than the state. Martin Hewitt, chairman of the National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC), said these were seeking to ensure consistency in the authorities response as everyone surely got to grip with the brand new "unprecedented measures"."Our plan is that people will engage with people, we will clarify the measures ... we will encourage people to go back home but then as an extremely last resort we will enforce," he told BBC radio.
The government drafted in the brand new regulations amid concern some Britons were failing woefully to heed advice in order to avoid social gatherings to greatly help prevent the spread of COVID-19.The weekend before the new regulations were introduced, parks and beauty spots have been packed, leading to the Archbishop of Canterbury to tell persons never to act selfishly.
"The police are doing a difficult job plus they are carrying it out well," Transport Minister Grant Shapps told Sky News."I am certain there are individual examples where perchance you look at it and think that could very well be a bit further than they should have gone but generally terms I think the case is that if persons help everybody out, including the police, by staying home and the others of it, then you will see no problems."
