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?

Actually it isn't illegal, the message is is stay safe and alert. There is no physical law imposed that means you cannot do that as long you are not in a large group. I would file a complaint.

This would make a good story for local/national news. Sad face pic time and insist the police to comment etc. It’ll go viral. If you’ll pardon the term.

This is absolutely ridiculous and draconian, sorry to hear this happened to you

OP that's really crap - YANBU.

This is WHY people are so angry with Cummings - he seemingly can drive up to Durham while infected and gad about castles with impunity - meanwhile the police are sendings vans to chuck a mum and a her toddlers out of a sandpit. It's blatantly unfair.

What a lousy thing to do. So we're allowed on the beach in thousands but You're not allowed to take your little ones for a just a few minutes to play in a sand pit. We're either allowed out of we're not, which is it.

I bet the person who grassed is a me and mind are alright , Jack, sitting in the garden with their feet in a bowl of cold water while sipping on a cocktail.

Some people are total arseholes OP. These kind of stories, where neighbours grass each other up for totally harmless and understandable things make me feel very sad. Do they have nothing better to do than make other people's lives shit? People whose lives are probably pretty fucking hard at the moment and for you.

You were not being unreasonable.
Whoever reported you is an officious bellend. I can't believe the police have time for this bollocks.

@CatWithKittens

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

Of course I do. There are rules for a reason. Break them at your own peril.

Well it’s technically against the rules- but sod it, I’m sure you acted with integrity and the best interests of your children, so it’s probably fine 🤷🏻‍♀️

I think the reason why sandpits etc aren’t ‘ok’ is because they’ll be points in parks where lots of people are likely to head, thus making social distancing harder. However, I do think that the warning you were given is insane.

Compared to what Cummings did what you did was perfectly fine. I'm sorry you have had to face this.
Not everyone is lucky enough to have parents who have a wood on their property.

Never understood how Boris said you can sit on a bench but not sit on a swing

I thought that was because children are far less able to control their hygiene, lick things, put their hands in their mouths etc. Or maybe it’s because the rule are arbitrary...

So toddlers are allowed back at childminders/nurseries and R, Yr1 allowed back to school in 4 days time but your 2 children aren't allowed to play in an empty sandpit??!! Honestly, some people just relish the control over others. Unless the people who reported you dive hearfirst into the sandpit and start eating the sand what harm are you actually doing. You took your own play equipment so its not like it was shared stuff therefore it is absolutely no different to sitting on a patch of grass that someone then comes along and sits on after you have left (which is perfectly acceptable and within the rules!!)

Forgot to say, I struggle to see what you did drastically wrong tbh. These rules need revising.

Sounds like a case of a bored dementor and a police officer with a quota to fill.

I think the reason why sandpits etc aren’t ‘ok’ is because they’ll be points in parks where lots of people are likely to head, thus making social distancing harder.

I thought being alert and using your own judgement would mean you would be perfectly well able to distance if other people are around you? Or is everyone in the UK to be treated like a child? (in which case Cummings and his wife should be in jail and throw away the key )

@CatWithKittens. I take it you think Dominic Cummings broke the rules, too. Driving to Castle to test his eye sight or. Are his set of rules better than ops because she lives in a flat and he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth and Daddy owns a farm.

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.

The flu deaths occurred with out lockdown. Do you not think deaths with Covid would be much much higher if we didn't have lockdown?. We have had at least 40,000 deaths despite only about 7% of the population being infected. If 70% of the population were infected which could easily happen considering there is no vaccine that could mean at least 400,000 deaths in the UK alone. Rather worse than flu don't you think?!

Heartsonacake - full marks for honesty but for normal human decency and what until very recently has always been seen as acceptable behaviour ?????

That's an absolute nonsense OP. I struggle to understand the mean spirited mentality of the person who reported you. For fuxsakes. I salute you for lasting as long as you did.

"It's time to move on," said Saint Boris. Yes, indeed it is time to move on from these silly petty restrictions, and absurdities like social distancing.

This "new normal" that people keep banging on about worries me much more than the virus. We are sleepwalking into Nineteen Eighty-Four, where highly restrictive laws can be rushed through with no scrutiny, welcomed by the public; people are banned from seeing their families; members of the public spy on each other; and the Two Minute Hate (ritualised clapping), where people shame each other for not taking part. This must not be allowed to become the new normal.

Just me (I have not read the whole thread) but I’d be providing some constructive feedback to the police about their priorities... supposedly breaking lockdown rules when parks, beaches, roads etc are so busy (didn’t we hear reports that COVID-19 can be transported around on footwear?) by playing in the sandpit is bullshit.
Whoever reported you needs a good wake up call!
I’d be seething if I were you OP.

You did not break the rules. The police were wrong to move you on. You are permitted "to visit a public open space for the purposes of open-air recreation to promote their physical or mental health or emotional wellbeing alone, with one or more members of their household, or with one member of another household". That sounds like exactly what you were doing.

It was a part of the playground equipment but it was early in the morning and nobody else was there. Feels very 1984 reading tales like this, quite scary actually.

The police should be allowed to disperse large gatherings and people shouldn’t be having parties right now but letting your toddlers play alone in a sandpit is totally different.

Awlookatmybabyspider - I am not sure why you addressed that question to me. I have not criticised OP at all. What concerns me is the attitude that it is OK to spy on neighbours and report them as though we lived in a police state.