Coronavirus: Police issue 2,000 fines for lockdown breaches in England

Officers in England handed out 1,977 fines for breaches of Covid lockdown rules in the first two weeks of November, according to new police data.

The largest number of fines were issued in north-west England which, along with Leicester, has now been under the longest period of restrictions.

Greater Manchester Police has handed out the most tickets (309) since the lockdown began on 5 November.

Merseyside Police issued 277 fines and there were another 178 in Lancashire.

The figures, published by the National Police Chiefs' Council (NPCC) on Monday, show that officers in Leicestershire have issued 30 fines under the November lockdown laws.

Police chiefs believe the significant difference between the areas may be down to the willingness of people to comply with requests from officers to break up a gathering, along with the amount of police time that has been allocated to investigations, according to the BBC's home affairs correspondent Dominic Casciani.

Overall, 24,993 fines were handed out by officers in England and Wales for breaches of coronavirus rules between 27 March and 16 November.

On face coverings, the NPCC figures showed 641 tickets were issued between 15 June and 16 November, including 169 on public transport, an average of eight per week.

The remaining 472 were handed out in relevant places such as shops. The weekly number rose sharply to 78 between 2 October and 8 October, and has ranged between 43 and 91 since then.

The NPCC said up to the 24 November, there were 416 occasions where officers found an individual in breach of quarantine rules after travel abroad. No further action was taken after the person was successfully encouraged to self-isolate.

The figures show that in 7,040 cases travel quarantine rules were being followed, while on the 586 occasions officers visited the address of someone who was supposed to be self-isolating, they found nobody with the relevant name lived there.

Another 862 investigations were abandoned after officers found nobody was home.

The figures show that up to 16 November, police in England issued 223 tickets to people failing to self-isolate after arriving from a country on the government's quarantine list.

Meanwhile, preliminary crime figures also published by the NPCC on Monday showed that police recorded crime in England and Wales was down 9% in October this year compared to 2019, including a drop of 18% in serious violent crime.

There was a 2% rise in recorded domestic abuse incidents, the NPCC added.