More than 60 fines issued to Covid rulebreakers in Cambs this year

Priti Patel announces increase in fines for lockdown partygo (1)

The figures, which come from the National Police Chiefs Council, were aired on BBC Radio Cambridgeshire when breakfast show host Dotty McLeod spoke to members of Cambridgeshire Constabulary about what it's like to police during a pandemic.

The figures come after the Home Secretary announced that an £800 fine can be given to anyone attending a house party of more than 15 people.

It comes after two £200 fines were issued when police found discovered that a person had travelled 161 miles from Skipton in North Yorkshire to stay with a friend in Doddington.

PC Kirsty Hulley, who works across Fenland, Wisbech and Peterborough, told her: “It is taking its toll on people for many different reasons.

“And I do sometimes think that people see me, as a police officer, as perhaps an easy person to vent their frustrations too.

“I’m happy to do that if it’s done in the right way and in a constructive way.

“In a way that I can listen to them, possibly understand their frustrations and try to educate them or let them know why these restrictions are in place; why we’re having to be as tough as we are.

“Ultimately, it’s to save people’s lives and to protect the NHS.”

PC Dan Newton, who is based in Huntingdon and was also interviewed on the show, said he was called out to a house party with four people.

Each of them was fined £200 and when PC Newton spoke to the homeowner, who initially tried to give false details to the police, he had no reason for having the house party.

PC Newton added: “I don't think they realised quite how much the fine was going to be.

"I think they assumed that, because Cambridgeshire was one of the lowest forces to give out fines in the first lockdown, it wasn’t going to be the case.

“They thought that they would just get a warning and a telling off and be sent on their way."