Police must deploy common sense over lockdown – Yorkshire Post Letters

ONCE upon a time, as all fairy tales go, police were generally trusted and supported by the general public. Unfortunately, over the last few decades, public perception of police activities has plunged to its nadir.

Although we are in a
life-threatening, highly contagious pandemic and the police have the task of trying to limit unnecessary travel, they keep making disastrous miscalculations, as evidenced recently in Derbyshire with two ladies taking exercise, for which the police later had to apologise.

Similar ridiculous decisions have been taken throughout the country since last March by various police forces.

Prior to this latest national lockdown, no effort appears to have been made by police to curtail unnecessary travel from Teesside, West Yorkshire and Tyneside by minibuses full of drinkers aiming for York.

And yet they are harassing people who are no doubt taking a common-sense approach, going about their legal travel activities when shopping, going to work or going for exercise.

We have the Government telling us to exercise but to do it “locally”. However, the law in England does not define “local” and we are told to use our common sense in our personal interpretation.

Senior management in the police have failed to address this issue and to tell constables to use their common sense as there is no law to enforce. The threshold in criminal law for conviction is “beyond reasonable doubt”, not for a constable to think you have done wrong.

What is local? Who knows? A gentleman writing in this paper last week regarded it as his constituency area, the Scottish Government regard it as your local authority area, the English Government left it as vague as possible.

If you live in a city, your local shops, banks, vets, doctors etc may be within half a mile.

Villages no longer have shops and the smaller market towns no longer have banks, lawyers, doctors, dentists or specialist shops so you travel 10 or 15 miles each way for your local needs. Local is relative.

My opinion, based on common sense, is that I am a damned sight more isolated and therefore less of a hazard to myself or others to drive six miles up to the moors for a walk and not see another soul all day, rather than be on the now crowded, nose-to-tail paths around this village.

Tomorrow I have to travel a 16-mile return trip for a Covid injection. Is that a local journey? I hope an over-zealous constable decides to ask!

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