Two people fined twice in less than three hours for attending illegal parties in Yorkshire

North Yorkshire Police has revealed that the two rule breakers were found at a gathering in the town at around 10pm on Saturday and given fixed penalty notices.

The same two were then discovered again by officers at another party four miles away just before 1am and were again fined.

Superintendent Mike Walker, North Yorkshire Police lead for the force’s Covid-19 said it showed that some people “did not care” that they were breaking the rules as 186 tickets were handed out in the last seven days across the county, the most since the third lockdown began.

During a meeting of the North Yorkshire Local Resilience Forum this morning Mr Walker said that despite the force taking action against 11 people from Manchester who travelled to Whitby last week four more people made the journey over from the city at the weekend to “look at the sea”.

Mr Walker said: “For the reckless minority who think the regulations do not apply to them we will continue to actively target those blatant breaches whilst providing a highly visible and reassuring presence for the wider community who are doing the right thing.”

Of the 186 penalty notices issued in the last seven days 64 were in the Scarborough borough and 55 were in York. The next highest location was Craven with 23.

He added: “We have had several small gatherings across the weekend in Scarborough and some in York also.

“Over the course of the weekend two people in Scarborough were part of an indoor gathering around 10pm on Saturday in the town centre and were issued fixed penalty notices. Around three hours later at 12.45am the same two people were at another indoor gathering about four and a half miles away and were again issued fixed penalty notices.

“That clearly shows that people do understand the rules, they are given fixed penalty tickets and then, disappointingly, I believe those particular individuals did not care about the damage they could do and they are the type of people and these are the type of incidents the public expects us to attend. We will keep attending them until the national lockdown ends.”

Other incidents of note included people from Leeds travelling to Gargrave in Craven, a couple from Hull who went to Grosmont near Whitby for a walk, the party of four from Manchester who travelled to the seaside at Whitby, two people, one of whom was from Glasgow, who met up near Harrogate and three people from Leeds who went to Selby to look around a derelict building.

Mr Walker added: “These are clearly blatant breaches of the health protection regulations. I’m sure those people would have known they were doing wrong and probably thought they would not get caught.

“The message to those people who think North Yorkshire currently is the place to come to walk, to see the sea and various different unacceptable excuses is expect to encounter a police officer and expect enforcement action to be taken against you.”