Just got reported to police for breaching lockdown. WIBU?!

[saylor]

For context: I have 2 toddler DC (tiny age gap!), we live in a flat and we have thus far abided by all lockdown rules, and it's been fucking hard!

This morning, at 9am (!!!!), I took DC to the park across the road and let them play in a sandpit which forms part of an un-gated playground. All the play equipment is roped off with police and hazard tape and we didn't go on the equipment, just played in the sand with buckets and spades. First time in 9 weeks and no one else was there.

After literally only being there for 5 minutes a police van pulls up and tells me I'm breaching lockdown rules, took my details, and gave me a warning. She stopped short of fining me. I apologised and started packing up the buckets and spades and older toddler had an absolute meltdown that we had to leave. The police woman took pity on me and said she was sorry she had to move us on but because someone reported me, it was her job.

So someone saw a mother and her two young children playing in the sand and decided to call the police at 9am and tell me off. This is after a bank holiday weekend of huge groups of people socialising all over the park and no one told off.

I'm livid. AIBU? Or WIBU to take my DC to the sandpit after 9 weeks of lockdown hell?

Drug dealers go on dealing, mobs brawl on the beach but a mum and kid are swooped on in a park. Is this the Britain we know? I have stuck to the rules but the powers that be don’t.

I think this is outrageous.
Parks are very much open to everyone.
Benches don't "naturally occur" but people are allowed to sit on them.
Tennis courts/skate ramps/basketball facilities are now open in my local park. I would've thought the chance of transmitting the virus would be higher on hard surfaces?
They hadn't ropes off the sand, which they should've done if it was off limits.
Complain to your local council.

In the OP it says major London park, but those who are saying all parks are still closed are almost certainly referring to play areas. Sand pits are also still closed everywhere as they are play equipment.

I understand op. I three kids under three and no outdoor space. This will be unpopular but I have been taking them to play spaces this entire lockdown. Most of the time I see people in the park not social distancing while drinking and having dogs off lead. So yeah... I am letting my kids play. Sorry/not sorry

@heartsonacake you really wanna pack it in. coming across like an idiot

It was the use of the sandpit that was the problem. It's using shared equipment. Other people could be touching it before or after you without it being possible to be cleaned - although sunshine/UV light cleans sandpits pretty well in my opinion

Only its just a sandpit (a small enclosed beach shall we say), no shared equipment (the buckets and spades were the posters own). Therefore, sitting in the sand on their own and playing with their own toys was absolutely no different to sitting on the grass next to the sandpit on their own playing with their own toys. I mean, other people could sit on that same patch of grass once the poster had moved on making it a shared space therefore should we not be allowed to sit on the grass either or benches or anything for that matter...

YANBU and this situation is really bringing out the worst in people.

I feel for you so much having small children in a flat.

Whoever reported you should feel ashamed of themselves and quite frankly so should the policewoman. So groups of teenagers are fine, bbqs, parties. But a mother and children nowhere near anybody in a park gets a warning. The world has gone mad.

Waste of police time. And yes as a previous her poster mentioned domestic violence, I once had a violent ex boyfriend/stalker threatening to break down my door. Police made me feel like I was a time waster and never turned up. I guess he would have needed to have murdered me first. Yet they turn up to this. Shameful all round.

Rules is Rules. If we all broke them where would it all end up?

Why can't people just mind their own business? I always preach to my daughter to not worry about everyone else is doing, so long as she is doing the right thing. Hardly the crime of the century is it?!

Christ, this situation has turned a lot of people into nasty informers.

You only need to look on AIBU to see a million threads about "shall I report my neighbour for doing X".

NO.

Mind your own fucking business.

Makes you realise that there are a lot of people who would have taken great pleasure in shopping people to the secret police for the slightesrt liberties if they'd lived in, e.g. East Germany in the 1970s.

You are allowed to go into the park.
The council should tape off any out-of-bounds areas within the park. You were not at fault and I don't think you should have been warned by the police. If anything they should warn the council that they haven't safeguarded the public properly.

That policewoman needs to find out exactly what people can and cannot do. Just because some nosey sod reported you doesn’t mean she has to move you on.

My childminder has said that she’s been told the kids can’t play in sandpits/water etc because it can’t be sanitised.

The fact you can go play at the beach does seem very contradictory And unfair. BUT you must be aware your not allowed to play on a park. You’ve not been fined, your child will survive. Chalk it up to experience and crack on.

It is contradictory and thus the "not allowed" is utterly meaningless. Fuck chalking it up to experience.

Question this bollocks. Question elected MPs and government aides who break lockdown rules by visiting family, second homes and travelling with people who have symptoms.

Sitting back and accepting contradictory rules and police action on those contradictory rules will lead to a slippery slope away from a democracy based on equality. One rule for the Westminster elite, another for us plebs.

OP, I would complain to the police watchdog to have the warning removed from police records. She took your details so the warning must have been registered somewhere. And unless they can confirm that every single other parent who allowed their children to play on the beach were fined or warned for doing exactly what you did, those exceptions should have been applied to you too.

I agree with lockdown, I agree with keeping safe. I agree with keeping distance. I walk/run at the less busy times. But I refuse to support this Stasi behaviour displayed by far too many.

The police need to be reminded of using common sense. There was nothing stopping the police woman from assessing the situation and saying "no it's fine, I can see there is no issue here" and reporting that back. Essentially they are moving people on at the say so of random members of the public because they "have to be seen to do so". Utterly insane.

Meanwhile the beaches are rammed.

That's just bloody horrible. Kids have been doing so well not being able to see their friends and having to walk past their favourite playgrounds that they can no longer go in.

Hell for some kids this will be their last summer of wanting to play like a child. And it's been taken away........reporting a child for playing with their own toys alone is just bloody nasty.

I don't think you did anything wrong and I'm a stickler for the rules.

It's ridiculous.

I live by the beach and there were plenty of kids down there this morning making sandcastles and playing in the sand.

Why is that okay but playing on a "fake beach" in a park isn't?

why didnt they put tape over the sand then if its out of bounds

Yes you were BU—you know the playground is closed. "Oh, but they haven't roped off the sandpit so that bit must be okay"… Seriously whatever happened to common sense? (Rhetorical question.)

By the way. You were not obliged to give the police your details, I would have refused.

Which I believe is an arrestable offence.

It’s a bit mental, I mean the tennis courts are open now in our park, the grass section is full of picknickers, people playing. Are parks meant to be closed? The kiddie play bit is padlocked still, but otherwise it’s open.

I dont think sand on beach ok vs sandpit is contradictory. I think in Spain it was thought that:

There is very little probability of infection because of the combination of seawater salt, ultraviolet radiation from the sun and the high temperature of sand.

Beach sand is constantly moved about and washed in effect - sandpits arent. They are pretty digusting at the best of times.

Playgrounds are shut - parks/beaches are not

I would question if it was legal to tape the equipment off. Given the relaxation shouldn't that tape be taken down. I think I would have questioned the copper and stayed playing.

AuroraBore don't know about you but my common sense dictates that if a cooped up child can play in the sand on a beach than a cooped up child who isn't lucky enough to have access to a beach can play in a sandpit in a public park. 💁🏻‍♀️

Op- I don’t blame you, rational behaviour seems to have gone surrounding children and their activities.
I’ve looked at the cordoned off playpark near me and wondered how long it would take to be reported/ be challenged by someone. When we frequently pass folk on the benches all over the park.
In Scotland so both are forbidden at present. I guarantee letting the kids onto the play park would instantly be challenged, whereas folk on benches are unchallenged.

It would be the same if you were to go to the beach wouldn't it? I don't see how your broke the rules. It's no different in my opinion to playing on the grass. It's probably a nose curtain twitcher who reported you with nothing better to do.

I'd be livid too.

I would question if it was legal to tape the equipment off. Given the relaxation shouldn't that tape be taken down

Playgrounds are technically still closed, but parks are open. They're not quite the same thing.