From snowball fights to delivering birthday cards: Britain’s 136,000 lockdown penalty charges

While Boris Johnson and Keir Starmer await the police’s judgment, there has been no end to the fines issued to others caught by their lockdown rules. At last count, some 136,000 fixed penalty notices had been issued in Britain. Durham police – a fairly easygoing force by Covid standards – have handed out just 1,090. Is it a bit mean to fine someone for having had a glass of wine or a beer at work? Perhaps. But no more so than the fines still being issued under the lockdown rules that Johnson and Starmer both voted through.

A student in Leeds was fined £10,000 for organising a snowball fight. A beggar was fined £434 for having his cap out at King’s Cross station. A homeless man was arrested at Liverpool Street station for being outside ‘without a reasonable excuse’. Staff at a London chip shop were told to attend a ‘business meeting’ during the second lockdown, when work meetings were allowed. They all received a fine because the police decided the meeting could have been held online. A Devon landlord held a Christmas gathering for staff on the same day as the Downing Street Christmas bash – and received a £4,000 fine.

Rules are rules: for some, at least. The police won’t investigate any more offences, but the backlog is such that the cases keep being heard in magistrates’ courts and fines keep coming. No one in 10 Downing Street, meanwhile, has been charged more than £50.

In each lockdown case, the defendant can enter a written plea. Many are heartbreaking. A 66-year-old man from Brockley said: ‘I am a sick person with heart failure and other problems. I went to the allotment to get some greens as I don’t eat meat.