Derbyshire crime chief calls for even stricter lockdown

Hardyal Dhindsa, Derbyshire’s Police and Crime Commissioner, said the current national lockdown in England needed to be reviewed, stating there was much more traffic and activity than in the previous lockdown in March.

This comes after Derbyshire Police faced criticism for handing out fines to two women who were one a socially distanced walk. The force wrongly said it was against the law for the women to drive to go for their walk a few miles from their homes.

peaking on BBC Breakfast, Mr Dhindsa admitted that the ‘overzealous’ approach of police officers ‘could’ have a negative impact on the willingness of the public to comply with the rules.

He added: “But, in the main, when police are engaging with the public, the public are very compliant and are following guidance.

“If you think of the hundreds and thousands of calls to police on Covid-19, the number of fixed penalty notices given out are small.

“The problem is how are the lockdown rules and regulations in place, and the review of them is something that needs to be looked at.

“This lockdown is not the same as the lockdown that happened in March.

“If you look at traffic on our roads it’s still quite high, because people are still going to work.

“The activity on your roads and in our spaces is much more than the lockdown we had in March.”