I’ve had the odd run-in with the police over the years. Nothing serious you understand.

There were one or two ‘incidents’ when I was a teenager which the police were happy to put down to youthful exuberance.

As an adult, there have been one or two motoring offences. But there have also been a couple of fairly unusual incidents.

Several years ago, I was working in my front garden and dug up a bullet. Yes, a real live bullet which isn’t something you’d normally expect to find between the rose bushes.

I handed it in at my local police station (remember the good old days when we used to have local police stations?) A couple of days later I was visited by a firearms officer who took a very comprehensive statement from me, asking lots of questions for which I really didn’t have an answer.

There was little more for me to say other than: “I was digging in the garden, I found a bullet, I handed it in to a police station.”

Then there was the time I was interviewed about the disappearance of a young girl. That’s not quite as sinister as it sounds. Every household in the neighbourhood was visited by the police and statements taken, it wasn’t as though I was a suspect.

But looking back on all these interactions with the police, there is a common thread. Every time I had to deal with the police I was treated with the utmost respect and courtesy, even when I was a mouthy, (probably slightly drunk) teenager.

Now it’s true I can only relate my personal experience, and I’m not purporting to speak for anyone else, but I have always found police officers to be professional. To use something of a cliché, they have been firm but fair.

That, I suppose, is the essence of policing by consent.
We’ve all witnessed the scenes in London where women holding a vigil to mourn the abduction and death of young woman were manhandled before being arrested by police. 

It’s not a good look and there didn’t seem to be a lot of policing by consent going on there.

Being fair to the police, it can’t have been an easy job to enforce the laws around lockdown. At the time of writing, the government says you must not leave or be outside of your home except where you have a ‘reasonable excuse’. This is the law. The police can take action against you if you leave home without a ‘reasonable excuse’ and issue you with a fixed penalty notice fine, £200 for the first offence, doubling for further offences up to a maximum of £6,400.

And again, the law as it stands is quite clear about what is considered a ‘reasonable excuse’ to be outside your home.

These include going to work, education, exercise, shopping and childcare. There are other reasons and you can be out of your house but I’d check if I were you.

And woe betide you if you organise a gathering of more than 30 people where you are likely to end up with a £10,000 fine.
But what of policing locally? I get the impression Cheshire Police have been operating with a fairly light touch. It seems they are more likely to offer advice and move you on rather than reach for the fixed penalty notice.

But that all seems to depend on the lockdown-breakers seeing the error of their ways and complying with the police request.
I think one of the problems we are all facing – both police and the policed – is a combination of a number of things: lockdown fatigue, the successful roll-out of the vaccine and the announcement of Boris Johnson’s roadmap back to normality.

When you’ve been stuck at home for day after day, week after week, month after month and suddenly the prime minister is promising you a light at the end of the tunnel, it’s hard to maintain your lockdown discipline.

People have read the headlines of Johnson’s roadmap but probably not read the detail. I know family members who can quote you all the dates when various elements of lockdown will end and also tell you what they will be doing on those dates – March 29 when the Rule of Six will be back along with outdoor sport; April 12 when non-essential shops reopen; May 17 when you can have someone to stay in your home overnight and the international travel review will be published (that’s going to be a big date in our house); all the way through to June 21 when all restrictions on social gathering will be lifted and things will be back to normal.

Couple this with the success of the vaccine and in people’s heads, the pandemic is already over.
But it’s not.

My advice is to go back and look at the details of the so-called roadmap. None of these relaxations will go ahead unless they can pass four tests:

  • The vaccine deployment programme continues successfully
  • Evidence shows vaccines are effective in reducing hospitalisations and deaths
  • Infection rates do not risk a surge in hospitalisations, putting unsustainable pressure on the NHS
  • The assessment of the risks is not changed by new variants of concern.

I really don’t want to be a party-pooper here but it feels we still have some way to go yet before things are truly back to normal. Remember, those dates are not set in stone and in the meantime, I wouldn’t want you to run the risk of picking up a needless £200 fine.

Stay home if you can and stay safe.