Are we know in a totalitarian regime or something?

[Lastfreakinglegs]

10 years in prison for a lie. Of course a lie a out this is reprehensible, but..... Wtf.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/covid-travel-rules-red-list-prison-b1799698.html

10 years! Batshit.

@Brefugee

Plus rapists get less as well as manslaughter. Wtf is going on. I'm shocked.

tbh that's nothing to do with the 10 years for "Covid lying" and more to do with the sentencing guidelines for rape and manslaughter, isn't it?

I fully agree with this.

I really think that creating an offence of making someone criminally liable in law for causing death by a common respiratory infection is somewhere we should not tread. How on earth would you ever achieve the criminal standard of proof? That sets such a dangerous precedent that any sane country does not want to go down that particular rabbit hole.

You would presumably have to equate reckless endangerment with mens rea and so anyone who had the slimmest chance of being infected wouldn't dare venture outside for fear of being jailed should someone they come into contact with contact covid and die within 28 days. Or at least they would live in fear of being investigated.

But thats the sort of justification that the new offence is aiming at. I'm not convinced that it has been properly legally scrutinised at all, as the offence doesn't seem to meet the standard tests that are normally applied.

Why worry, nobody will ever get prison time for this - nor will they get the huge fines. Nothing is enforced, sadly, so it's all meaningless.

My first thought was, wow, the UK has outdone China; and my second thought was, is there something they’re not telling us yet about the true severity of the UK and SA variants. I haven’t grabbed a tin hat all this time, but here we are.

There are rich fuckers who would happily pay the hefty fine just so they could travel.

Prison may make them think twice.

It has to be a headline grabber to make the idiots who've disregarded everything else and still can't act like grownups pay some form of attention.

I really think that creating an offence of making someone criminally liable in law for causing death by a common respiratory infection is somewhere we should not tread. How on earth would you ever achieve the criminal standard of proof? That sets such a dangerous precedent that any sane country does not want to go down that particular rabbit hole.

This, it is an incredibly dangerous precedent to set.

Are we going to start tracking STD trails and criminalising those complacent in someone contracting chlamydia and losing their fertility, even if the people in the chain had no idea they had chlamydia and were just sexually reckless once?

Shall we criminalise anyone who passes on a cold to someone who passes it on to someone, who passes it onto someone who sadly it develops into pneumonia and kills them for? Even if the person at the start of the strain only had a sniffle? They were complicit in the chain that lead to someone's death due to their reckless choice to go out carrying a virus.

How can we guarantee person X was part of the chain of infection as opposed to person Y. Or maybe unrelated person Z who just happened to touch the same button in a lift?

Viruses spread, it's what they do. It's how they survive, life will always out, and the virus is a life in itself that only wants to keep spreading and living. I'm in no way saying open the world back up tomorrow, we need to find a balance as we as a species are another living thing that needs to survive. But setting a legal precedent that anyone in a chain of infection is responsible for death is very dangerous.

Deliberately infecting people with a very serious disease such as HIV is one thing, which attracts a maximum sentence of FIVE years....

Sent to prison for 10 years for lying on a form is quite another, especially as CV, in the vast majority of cases, is a mild illness.

[quote Lastfreakinglegs]10 years in prison for a lie. Of course a lie a out this is reprehensible, but..... Wtf.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/covid-travel-rules-red-list-prison-b1799698.html[/quote]
No...we are in a global pandemic

It's not like it's a new law, and 10 years is the maximum sentence, not the starting point

www.sentencingcouncil.org.uk/offences/magistrates-court/item/fraud/

George Orwell is turning in his grave....

Truly scary that our government are able to introduce these laws so quickly and easily.

@crazyontheweekend

George Orwell is turning in his grave....

Truly scary that our government are able to introduce these laws so quickly and easily.

This absolutely

I really think that creating an offence of making someone criminally liable in law for causing death by a common respiratory infection is somewhere we should not tread. How on earth would you ever achieve the criminal standard of proof? That sets such a dangerous precedent that any sane country does not want to go down that particular rabbit hole.
I think you're overstating the possibility of somebody accidentally traveling from a red list country and then accidentally lying about it.

@Zevia

I really think that creating an offence of making someone criminally liable in law for causing death by a common respiratory infection is somewhere we should not tread. How on earth would you ever achieve the criminal standard of proof? That sets such a dangerous precedent that any sane country does not want to go down that particular rabbit hole. I think you're overstating the possibility of somebody accidentally traveling from a red list country and then accidentally lying about it.

I think that comment ( and I appreciate GreenTheMovie's response) might in part at least have been a response to my query upthread about how we would handle somebody who deliberately went to work knowing they had tested positive for Covid, and there then followed a death in that workplace.

My question was is performing that foul deed, regardless of any excuse, any more or less worthy of potentially collecting a ten year stretch than somebody lying on a form and then quite possibly not infecting anybody....

Of course we all know from many threads here that throughout this outbreak within the UK, domestically, everybody has been scrupulous in their compliance with lockdown rules and guidance, social distancing guidelines, bubbles, and self isolation following a positive test .

I will admit I've read some of these posts and wondered if John 8:7 might be appropriate.

I have friends would willing pay the largest fine and take the risk just for a decent holiday, but there is no way they would risk a ten year prison sentence.

I think it is a fuck off deterrent designed to make even the most foolhardy person think twice, and book centre parcs instead. It is the nuclear option, but one the government clearly feels we need.

The question is why...I think that is the most interesting part, not what has been said, but what has been left unsaid.

For what it is worth, I believe the scientists now know what is coming next, they have done the modelling and checked out the most likely development, they would have spent a lot of time looking at the sequencing. So it might not be for this strain, but the next one that they are expecting.

We know the barest of facts about this virus. We like to think we are experts, and all of us have become armchair covid analysers. I am sure they just humour most of us. This action is completely out of character for a liberal loving, globe trotting government that would never inflict this on us without very very good reason (least of all because of the damage to the economy) Boris is a lot of things but he would loathe to do this without the most exceptional reason. Personally I am preparing for things to get much worse. Up to now I have been extremely buoyant and hopeful, but now not so much.

It isn't that people will be given a 10 year sentence. They can be given a sentence of upto 10 years.

So people whining about it being more severe than rape or child abuse, it isn't.

And it's incredibly easy to avoid, just don't lie about arriving from a red list country and quarantine as per the rules.

The potential punishment has to far outweigh any benefit of trying to dodge quarantine.

I thought this vaccine was going to protect people so we could start opening up but instead this quasi dictatorship wants to tighten restrictions.
And no it’s hardly a pandemic. More people died in the 1968 flu but they didn’t feel the need to destroy the fabric of society.

PP have made a good point about how rich people who would treat a fine as an additional expense worth paying for a holiday they want to go on might think twice about the potential for a significant custodial sentence. It's a bit of a social equaliser if looked at like that.

The question is why...I think that is the most interesting part, not what has been said, but what has been left unsaid.

Well, my two eurocents worth:

Many people have been clamouring for the Borders to be shut for twelve months. Fortunately even the current bunch in the cabinet knew economically and logistically that's a non starter for the UK so they held the line at mainly domestic restrictions and temporary bans on foreign travel combined with quarantine at home (neither of which appear to have been policed or enforced in the way similar rules were enforced in other countries, )...

Several months down the road the new variants appear... plus there's continued grumbling on Social Media and in the MSM from those who are convinced everybody arriving in the UK is, or has been, on holiday, or even worse, is an "influencer".

Ministers look at the numbers coming through airports now and realise that the level of arrivals has dropped to the point where the government can appeal to some of the voters by appearing to be playing the hard man/hard woman, and do it on the cheap - there are so few passengers arriving from high risk countries they can now bang them up without having to requisition all the hotel rooms in south east England.

Even better better still from a PR POV they can chuck threats of prison terms into the mix.

Ultimately I'm sure there will be sound medical reasons underlying all this to explain the "why" but the politicians love of optics, coupled with the reducing costs of implementing stronger quarantine now, will have played into the "when".

@unmarkedbythat

PP have made a good point about how rich people who would treat a fine as an additional expense worth paying for a holiday they want to go on might think twice about the potential for a significant custodial sentence. It's a bit of a social equaliser if looked at like that.

....again, wealthy people can afford speeding fines and drivers should they get banned. We are all equal (or should be) in the eyes of the law, very dangerous to start introducing different punishments based on wealth.

I wouldn't normally agree with some tory MPs but they are right when they say this is a ridiculous abuse of power.

notimagain spot on, this is populist politics. It's all about optics and it's ridiculous.

It is only an abuse of power if it is unreasonable.

One might argue that it is unreasonable to ruin millions of lives with endless lockdowns, and kills thousands of people by allowing the privileged few the option of going on holiday and pretending they are at home quarantining when they have no intention of doing so.

I think you grossly underestimate the sense of entitlement some people have when it comes to holidays and travelling, as if it is a god given right. Fines will never ever work, because many would see it as a price worth paying.

I never thought I would think this is a good idea, it has taken me a few days to weigh it all up, because I am naturally extremely liberal and prefer self governance. On balance though, it is the right thing to do. Clearly. Lives matter more than holidays.

.again, wealthy people can afford speeding fines and drivers should they get banned.
We are all equal (or should be) in the eyes of the law, very dangerous to start introducing different punishments based on wealth.

Interesting, I've long thought certain punishments should be based on wealth. Fines should be set to have broadly equal consequence. Fine me £100, it's going to sting but I won't have to give up an essential to pay it. Fine my MD £100, she won't even notice it. Fine my cousin E £100 and she will need to take from a basic need to fund it. We could all have committed the exact same offence and be given the exact same penalty, but the effects will be vet different for each of us.

In any case, though, the maximum penalty isn't based on wealth- it's just that it's one that will act as a deterrent regardless of wealth.