Police guidelines for officers on what is a reasonable excuse - worth reading

[chomalungma]

www.college.police.uk/What-we-do/COVID-19/Documents/What-constitutes-a-reasonable-excuse.pdf

Interesting reading. Especially with regards to driving for exercise, what exercise is, going shopping and the allottments.

I’ve just been sat in the garden listening to our neighbour couple (older) singing happy birthday to their grown up daughter who is visiting along with her grown up son. Oh, for goodness sake. If you're dropping groceries to older parents, there's no reason at all why you can't exchange pleasantries from a reasonable distance in the garden. Or even sing Happy Birthday.

If nothing else, hanging around long enough for a brief chat is the difference between assuming your elderly parents are managing fine and realising that they're not.

Pete down the road was waiting for me when I arrived him, telling me I'd been gone for more than two hours in total and he was reporting me to the authorities.

There are some people who just beg to have their heads pushed into a toilet and flushed, aren't there?

Yes. “caring” for someone means more than just making sure they are eating.

These guidelines need adding to every single thread in which someone has received a load of verbal abuse for doing one of the "likely to be reasonable" activites. Not least to allow some of the vitriolic posters a chance to apologise for using this outbreak as a chance to make someone else feel like shit for doing something perfectly reasonable.

I am sure these guidelines can be added.

Maybe a sticky thread at the top of MN?

Not least to allow some of the vitriolic posters a chance to apologise

At least 3 regular posters who have been most vocal on multiple threads come to mind. I bet we don't see them on here

Pete down the road was waiting for me when I arrived him, telling me I'd been gone for more than two hours in total and he was reporting me to the authorities.

Has the twat worked out that he still has to live there when all this is over? He isn't giung to enjoy being ignored for the rest of the time he lives at that address is he?

This is really good. Thanks for sharing.

Yes, put this somewhere very obvious so everyone can see it.

Does anyone know where I can find the guilines on exercise for Scotland? I would like to have them to hand if I'm questioned 😂

How can they possibly check these things, never mind enforce them? Follow people round with stopwatches to see what proportion of their time outside is spent walking and what proportion of it is sitting on a bench?

Good and very clear! Thanks for posting.

These guidelines are great - really clear and sensible - and yes they should be posted on each thread talking about what you can do.

We can take some long walks from the house and usually take a picnic with us. We are out about 2/3 hours on the moors where we meet very few people. We meet more people in the 15 minutes it takes us to get to the moors than once out on the moors. These walks are great for the children to really be able to run, shout, play and climb. This is especially important for our 13 year old where a 30 minute walk round the village isn’t enough. I can see it in his mental state that he really needs to be able to do this a couple of times a week. I’ve never dared to admit it on a thread though because we’re out for so long and have the temerity to sit down. I appreciate we are lucky in where we live but us going out doesn’t impact anyone else so it has always seemed sensible. (Waits to be told off about gates, restricting someone else’s ability to get out etc)

Yes Pete sounds a right numpty.

This defo needs adding to some of the more vitriolic threads on here...

How can they possibly check these things, never mind enforce them?

Almost certainly this is where the Engage, Educate, Enforce (in that order) model comes into play.

I think there has also been clarity about driving to get to a walk. It’s ok as long as the drive doesn’t exceed the exercise time. I think that’s right and the Children’s Commissioner was asking for great access to space for families with active younger children. So no more blocking up car parking areas which allow safe access to countryside I hope.

There's a chap down our street, we'll call him Pete, and he keeps an itinerary of the people's movements in the houses around him, shaming them publicly if he possibly can.

It's the Petes of the world who are making this absolutely fucking intolerable. I've left the house twice in the last 3 1/2 weeks - and both times our Pete and Mrs Pete have been at their gate, glaring at me daring to leave the door with a child in tow and clearly about to go around every single one of their mates in this street to complain I was taking the kids out unnecessarily. One time I was taking one child to a medical appointment, and the other time we went to look at the front window we'd decorated from the outside... I don't dare do anything else, let alone walk the dog or anything for how the Petes will react (and yes the fact they'll go around all their mates slagging off anyone they don't like who leaves the house doesn't pass me by in terms of its double-standards).

I'm at the point I'm almost considering suicide if this goes on much longer - I can't stand how people are turning against people, I can't stand the internet toxicity and the MN quarrantine police and I can't stand seeing how it's really affected the mental and physical health of my youngest. I could cope with the lockdown - it's the combination of lockdown, the Petes and the toxicity on here and every single social media outlet that gets me. Tonight and tomorrow it'll all be the "oh good show from Little Arsington Street for clapping well for the NHS... shame Middle NoClap Grove couldn't support our key workers as well - disgusting" and that grinds me down as well.

There are some people who just beg to have their heads pushed into a toilet and flushed, aren't there?
Ain't that the truth!

My partner lives in a different town from me and we usually split our time between our two houses . Does this mean he is allowed to travel to stay with me and me him as we usually do ?

The ultimate curtain twitcher is the one who pushed an anonymous note through a woman’s door in Cambridgeshire telling her she was a disgrace and had been reported because she kept coming and going and often stayed out for multiple hours at a time and even overnight.

All that was true - oddly enough doing 12 hour shifts nursing corona patients isn’t a job that can be done from home.

I think there has also been clarity about driving to get to a walk. It’s ok as long as the drive doesn’t exceed the exercise time. I think that’s right

Yup. It was bonkers to interpret the law as meaning you cannot take a short, safe drive to find somewere more open and secluded to exercise in isolation.

@Kuponut OMG totally agree - people have gone literally nuts

@kuponut , that’s awful... really, suicide? In the nicest possible way, perhaps you should come off social media if it is getting to you that much?

Thanks for sharing this - 100% clear and reasonable.

I wonder if any of the MN who went crazy at the pregnant lady stopping for a snack, the walkers in the countryside, the tango dancers, the brownie sharers, etc etc etc will dare to comment?!