Quarantine fines let-off for hundreds of holidaymakers

MORE than 600 households quarantined after returning to the UK escaped fines because no one answered the door to police officers or the returning holidaymaker gave the “wrong” address.

The 680 households represented nearly one in six (15 per cent) of the 4,114 homes checked by police since quarantine was introduced in June, according to the National Police Chiefs’ Council.

The NPCC said 440 cases resulted in no answer. Under the quarantine protocol, they returned for a second time but then passed the information to public health and Border Force officials.

At a further 240 addresses, no names matched those on the contact form. This again meant no further action was taken. As a result, since June only 38 £1,000 fines have been issued by 14 forces for breaches of the 14-day quarantine.

Yvette Cooper, the home affairs committee chairman, said it showed “huge gaps” in enforcement: “There clearly isn’t any robust enforcement system,” she added.

Under the scheme, 1,500 quarantining people a day should be called by Public Health England, with police sent to any judged suspicious. Even then, Ms Cooper said only 70,000 of the millions of passengers returning were called, with 80,000 not reached by phone.

Three quarters (3,216) of those contacted by police were found to be complying with the regulations while some 218 were in breach of the quarantine but no further action was taken because police “successfully encouraged them to self-isolate”, according to the NPCC.

Martin Hewitt, the NPCC chairman, said the system was “never designed to be 100 per cent”, adding that forces did not have the capacity to engage in manhunts for those breaching the regulations, especially as crime had returned to pre-covid levels.

He added: “[If ] we are unable to get the answer, we feed that back into the triage centre run by UK Border Force. That is their responsibility.”

The NPCC said only about half of almost 19,000 Covid-19 fixed penalty notices had been paid on time, further adding to pressure on the courts, which already faced a 500,000-case backlog.