Public urged to stay home

24 March 2020

With police officers in one area of Coventry today having to deal with more than 20 people having a barbecue, West Midlands Police Federation chair Jon Nott has repeated pleas for the public to stay home and stick to the latest Government guidance on social distancing and large gatherings.

And he has also backed the Chief Constable’s request for people not to call 101 or 999 with questions about staying at home.

“It is astounding, and incredibly selfish and irresponsible, for people to flout the guidance and I find it very hard to believe how anyone could think it is OK to have a barbecue for a large group of people given the restrictions we are all being asked to observe to try to halt the spread of coronavirus,” says Jon.

“Our members are working tirelessly to provide a service to the public and protect them so I would strongly urge them to follow the Government advice around staying at home and also stress that they should only call us in emergency situations or to report large gatherings.”

Chief Constable Dave Thompson says officers and PCSOs will be out and about in communities and will explain the new restrictions to members of the public if necessary but will move towards enforcement if people do not listen to the advice they are given.

He said today: “We are already receiving many calls on potential breaches of these arrangements. People can advise us if there are large scale breaches with large numbers of people congregating via webchat or 101. We would ask you to trust that we will target the most problematic behaviour.”

It comes as police chiefs today called for greater clarity on the new guidelines.