Should we contact the police about people who won't stay home?

[Pinkyyy]

I've seen a lot of things on Mumsnet about people who basically don't give a fuck and still plan to leave their house for the most non-essential reasons imaginable.

Should we alert the police if we become aware of anyone I'm our local areas who do this? Or would that be a waste of police time?

This is starting to look a lot like a dystopian nightmare, neighbours calling the police on each other.

No, the dystopian nightmare is when there are so many corpses that convoys of military trucks have to be brought in to take them away. Which is what is currently happening in Italy.

This is a pandemic. Flouting the rules on social contact will lead to more deaths. It is appropriate to notify the authorities when someone is endangering lives.

It would be difficult to police the neighbours. I can go out legitimately three times a day under the new rules - once to work, once to exercise, once to buy food (no car, did not panic buy, small fridge under the kitchen worktop). I walk to work and back so you see me leave my house three times a day. Mind you, I would think there was something wrong with you OP if you were looking out of your window at 11.35pm at night to see me go off to work!

Lots of people have woken up this morning and decided to lay down the law for others.

Walked past our local last night and all the curtains were tightly closed and there were some cars in the road. There are no houses around and we only saw one dog walker in the park. I suspect a lock in, but haven’t reported. I will though if it looks suspicious next time we pass.

Lots of people have woken up this morning and decided to lay down the law for others

Lots of people have decided to do what’s necessary to stop our frontline medical staff from dying in large numbers.

I'm not policing others. My driveway is very long and I can't see my neighbours from my house, so I won't be counting the times they leave the house. I was purely asking whether people will be reporting crimes of this nature. If I am driving to the supermarket and I see a gathering of people somewhere, I think it would need reporting.

There are people on here today who are planning to go on holiday to cottages. If I knew for definite that someone I knew was doing this, I'd report them too.

That and arm chair prime ministers reinventing the rules and shoving in a few of their own.

We are a family of 5 with an oap at the bottom of the road. In the next couple of days I will be exercising 5 people( bundling then in the car and driving a short distance to a remote place will be necessary now and then), taking dd to a hospital appointment, shopping for food, delivering food to the oap, doing outside chores for the oap if necessary, taking car for mot as necessary for work, going to work....

Spy and crack on. All will be legitimate and the police will be more than irritated at being unnecessarily bothered during a trying time.

Turning into arm chair police, spying, lecturing, insulting, exaggerating, scaremongering etc is only going to make things worse for society. We need to follow instructions from the government( not MNers) Chuck in a bit of empathy and kindness and take each day as it comes.

I don't think someone walking their dog alone 3 times a day is going to be a concern. Large gatherings as seen recently at Skegness etc is the real issue.

Well said Aufgehts. I'm in Italy over 3 hours away from the worst hit areas and some of those army trucks from Bergamo drive past my house every day bringing the dead to the local crematorium because there are too many for them to deal with there. If you don't want similar scenes in the UK stay the fuck home and yes report people who are blatantly ignoring lockdown.

This is one of the scariest, most stupid posts I have read. If we all turn on each other then we truly have nothing left as a society. Honestly, you do not know wether someone's journey is essential or not. You are not the journey police. Get a grip and concentrate on yourself.

The thing is if we had notice we could of done some shopping and collected what I need from work .
I've tried to do the right thing and not panic bought , but the shops have had limited stock so I've had to go more regularly and that defeats the point. I'll have to go out today to get what I need . So no I don't think people should be reported unless you see mass gatherings or businesses ignoring the rules .

Do NOT inundated the police with these types of calls. You should only be contacting in the police in an emergency situation. The police will be doing regular rounds of communities for these reasons (if their numbers allow) The police will already be dealing with higher numbers of burglaries and domestic violence during this period.

No.

The police have enough to do.
You must have something better you could be doing as well.

How ridiculous saying I would be a follower of Hitler FFS. If you all don't give a shit about saving lives then carry on as you are

Do NOT inundated the police with these types of calls. You should only be contacting in the police in an emergency situation. The police will be doing regular rounds of communities for these reasons (if their numbers allow)

Absolutely right.

I thought they'd have to ask people to snitch on each other.
I never imagined that people would openly offer.

In times of crisis, people really show their true selves don’t they?

How will you see all these groups when you are supposed to be staying at home anyway?

For Goodness sake the police and emergency services have enough to do.

This is starting to look a lot like a dystopian nightmare, neighbours calling the police on each other.

^this

The glee with which some people are welcoming these restrictions is terrifying.

I‘m going for resigned compliance as long as there is evidence that the measures have an effect. I’m not fucking cheerful about it.

Anyway the police are getting more drones to watch us all ... so you might be out of a job OP.

It's suddenly becoming remarkably easy to identify those who would have volunteered for Hitler Youth back in the day.

Best. Comment.Ever.

Waiting for the OP to suggest that my 30 minute walk to work and back every day plus the eight hours I work in a manual job constitutes my daily exercise so I should not be allowed to go out for that!

No, th police have bigger things to do. Unless someone is actually doing something that endangers others just leave them alone

And 100% agree re hitler youth!

All I can say is make sure you have your facts absolutely straight before you do anything and consider whether it might be someone like me.

I normally work from home but I have taken on a "community champion" role with one of the local initiatives to help folks who are isolating/can't get groceries etc. We live in a rural area which means bobbling around different stores in the district. Now while we are doing our very best to limit how often each volunteer is called on to do this (and we will be using PPE and distancing etc) it means in my case neighbours will have gone from barely seeing me at all to seeing me out and about.

So please, please before you curtain twitch and orgasm over shopping someone for what you perceive as wrong make sure you are right. And just remember that harassment and neighbour dispute legislation will still apply at the end of this mess.

Mumsnet .... bringing the Stasi to a street near you!