Greater Manchester’s most senior police officer has revealed the difficult situations his officers are finding themselves in amid hundreds of reports of coronavirus social distancing violations.
Speaking to BBC’s 5 Live Breakfast on Monday, chief constable Ian Hopkins revealed it was costing his force £100,000 each week to deal with reports of rule-breaking following the reimposition of local lockdown rules across Great Manchester, where different households are barred from mixing together indoors or in gardens.
In one incident, officers found themselves called out to a terminally ill child’s birthday party.
“Most people are absolutely trying their best to comply with what we’ve all been asked to comply with, to keep us all safe. But we are getting lots of reports from the public,” Mr Hopkins said.
“It feels a bit at the moment like we can’t win because if we don’t go to deal with these things people are saying, ‘Well it’s not fair because I’m trying my best to comply, why are these people allowed to do it?’. And where we do deal with it, people are saying, ‘Well it’s heavy-handed and it’s a police state’.
“We’re trying to take a very balanced and proportionate view, so throughout this pandemic, we’ve issued very few fixed penalty notices across Greater Manchester. One to every 10,000 citizens at one point. Even this weekend we’ve only issued 19.”
Mr Hopkins’ comments came amid criticism of Greater Manchester Police (GMP) for issuing fines to three families who were socialising in a garden for a child’s birthday.
“The party we’re talking about – and obviously I’ve seen some of the criticism around that – it was gone eight o’clock in the evening, it was reported to us by members of the public and it was mostly adults who were enjoying the party. It wasn’t jelly and ice cream with a bunch of three- and four-year-olds sat around in the middle of the afternoon,” he said.
“To contrast that, which isn’t being reported because it’s not been in the public domain, we were called to a child’s birthday party and when my officers got there, they realised that it was a party for a child that’s terminally ill. So it was very much discretion, a quiet word, and we went on our way.
“So we are trying to balance what we’re doing, but it’s a really difficult position for us at the moment.”
Mr Hopkins revealed GMP officers had attended 126 incidents of alleged social distancing violations over the weekend – mainly house parties and gatherings – but that they could “not get to everything”.
“A lot of things that are going on in people’s homes or illegal gatherings away from the home, it isn’t safe, social distancing is not taking place, and, of course, that will lead to the virus spreading,” he said.
Asked what the experience was like for police officers, Mr Hopkins said: “I’m having officers pelted, we’ve had vehicles damaged ... officers that have been assaulted and bitten.”
