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?

Totally over the top, feel sad for your DC's. So petty for someone to report you for that. Bet they aren't stuck in a flat with 2 little kids!! There is a lot of pettiness about now.

I apologise, DH has corrected me, he thinks it was a 9 minute window for the CCTV.

What a ridiculous situation we have got ourselves into here in the UK, 'Mother of the free' no longer. We are now debating whether a sandpit forms part of a playground following a report to the police of a toddler playing in it. And obsessing about whether a government adviser should have driven somewhere or not, rather than the fact that we've been under virtual house arrest for nearly 3 months and scared half to death by a virus that if occuring in winter would only be considered a worse than normal flu year, and is following an epidemic curve.

I undertstand the overreaction in the early days, but given what we now know this is plainly ridiculous. All so Mabel, aged 95 may see 95.5.

There will be a special place in hell for these informants.

Heartsonacake - do you really approve of this spying culture which appears to have grown up in recent times?

It's very sad that anyone would report this. I feel the "rules are made not to be broken" even if they don't make sense type of person is actually increasing the chances of coronavirus spreading rather than helping to prevent it. If lockdown is made more difficult than it needs to be there is more chance people will break it in a way that increases transmission.

Whoever reported the OP did not cause a sad child, OP caused her own child to be sad because she took them to do an activity they should not have been doing.

She took that risk and it backfired; she has to deal with the consequences of that.

Oh get a grip. People are allowed to go to the beach, have a picnic in the park, meet people outside of their household, play tennis/golf with someone outside of their household. Playing in a sandpit after 9 weeks cooped up in a flat is nothing when all of the above is condoned by the government.

Was it you who made the call?

OP caused her own child to be sad because she took them to do an activity they should not have been doing.

Really?
How is it any way different to the beach or digging in a garden which are allowed. As long as everyone is 2m apart there’s no more risk than those.

how anyone thinks it's reasonable to report this is honestly beyond me. it actually makes me feel real sadness that this is what society has come to.

to those who think the caller had a point or are quoting the rules on here - do us all a favour and get a life

It is extremely likely that the person who had reported it has also been told off for some minor infraction that didn't really need reporting. Honestly parents have asked for this kind of thing to be reported by the sheer level of reports and social media posts about younger people breaking the lock down in similarly mild ways. The police simply can't reasonably break up small groups of teenagers if they aren't going to also enforce the restrictions on other parts of society, so with the level of anti-teenager sentiment currently about they have to deal with all minor breaches.

And obsessing about whether a government adviser should have driven somewhere or not, rather than the fact that we've been under virtual house arrest for nearly 3 months and scared half to death by a virus that if occuring in winter would only be considered a worse than normal flu year, and is following an epidemic curve.

Considering that there have been around 40,000 deaths even though only about 7% of the population has been infected I think it is a far worse than normal flu. We also don't have vaccination.

I think the police should have used a bit of common sense. Honestly, this is getting out of hand. You can go to the beach and play in the sand. You can go to a park and sit and play on the grass. You were a small family outside. You were not being unreasonable, the person who reported you was in the wrong.

@heartsonacake and you realllllly need to get a life, I pity you

I agree with others that technically you were breaking "the rules" as the sandpit is part of the playground. I am amazed that someone reported you though. Unfortunately "the rules" are not clearly enough stated, which is partly why we end up with the whole Dominic Cummings scenario.

I admit, in the early days of the lockdown, I did tell a woman who was letting her daughter play in the playground that she shouldn't be doing it, and she was putting her at risk of Covid-19. It wouldn't have crossed my mind to report her though.

This is fucking disgraceful. Of course OP was being reasonable.

Somehow we can open car showrooms, golf courses and let people go fishing, but a toddler can't play in a sandpit?

Are we just reopening the stereotypical man world, and women and children can stay home?

What kind of sad idiot would report something like this? People need to get a fucking life.

It's ridiculous, OP. I'm sorry it happened to you.

Pretty sure the argument will be that a golf course can easily limit the number of users and tennis by definition doesn't bring crowds on the court. Beaches access are theoretically limited by the amount of parking spaces allowed.

There's absolutely no way to prevent crowding in playgrounds, unless you find the money to pay for a guard limiting numbers at the entrance.

In my innocence I had always believed that the Stasi, Gestapo, KGB and like organisations would have had difficulty getting people in the UK to spy on their neighbours.

I live in Germany and online over the years have had to put up with so many people asking how i can bear to live in Nazi/Stasi land. And I really really really now want to go through all my old SM and say: you lot are way worse. It took around 2 weeks from when lockdown started to the first reports of people calling the police on their neighbours for minor infringements.

She took that risk and it backfired; she has to deal with the consequences of that.

You haven't been watching the news over the last few days, have you? The general consensus in the Cabinet is that people are allowed to exercise their own judgement. The OP was doing the best for her children and who can argue with that?

I'm now wondering if the people who have been fined since mid-April are getting their money back. I would definitely be looking into it if I'd had a fine.

@AlabamaArkansas
Someone who (in many cases rightly) feels that they are being targeted by a demographic that the OP fits into.
Many women with young children are using the lock down as an excuse to target teenagers and younger adults and are both reporting and shaming them on social media for the smallest possible breaches of the lock down (or in some cases things that aren't actually against the lock down, or may well not have been done by the claimed group). They then cannot expect the local young people to ignore their own breaches of the lock down.

You should not have used the sand pit. But in view of the DC ruling you did what you thought was best for you and your family. So fine as far as I can see.

God I’m so fed up of this crap. If you feel the risk of your DC getting ill from sand is acceptable, it should be your decision. We let people take unvaccinated children on holidays to developing countries for Christ sake as that is their parental prerogative. Even though those kids could catch something, give it to loads of people in the developing country, cost the NHS loads of money to treat and give it to other unvaccinated or vulnerable immune compromised people in the UK. It’s basically the exact same logic...

I’m so done with this madness when according to a diagram I just found from the independent excess winter deaths in 2017-18 season were 50,000. I know this is a nasty disease but we live in a world with diseases. I know it’s devastating when your granny dies aged 85 who was otherwise mostly healthy. I know it’s scary if you have an immune condition or diabetes and have to shield. But the world is a risky place and now the NHS is set up to cope I don’t see why the rest of us should give up our lives and face at least a decade of recession, high unemployment, rising poverty and austerity to pay for all the debt the government is taking on in order to save mostly old people so they can live a few years longer (>75% UK deaths are aged 75 and over).

hearts I really really hope I don't know you in real life. In fact, I'm pretty sure I don't because no-one I know would be so mean-spirited.
I do not agree with breaking the lockdown rules btw, but to report this to the police is just petty mindedness.
This pandemic has brought out the best and the worst in people.

That is the real issue though isnt it with the DC ruling that we should be allowed to do what is right for our families. But in order for this not to go back to how it was (and personally I think we can start too I think we have been too fearful) it relies on others making the choice not to do these things.

mrpumblechook it is worse than recent flu, but to the point where we treat everyone in the country like prisoners? 1999-2000 there were 48,000 excess winter deaths. 2014/15 there were 44,000. This is almost exclusively attributed to flu. This doesn't even look at the Korean flu in the 60s and Spanish flu.

My hunch is that CV was on the wain prior to lockdown. Deaths peaked on 8th April. People usually take a couple of weeks to be hospitalised and another couple of weeks to die from it. Chances infection peaked at the begining of March, and started to drop at least a week before lockdown started.

I'm not saying its not serious, but is it that much worse that we restrict peoples hard fought freedoms and wreck the economy?

Our parks are open but play grounds are taped off. Sandpits taped off. If this sandpit is just a pit, with no equipment and not taped off then I probs would have thought that it was ok to use tbh.