Spoken to by the police

[Foldinthecheese]

This morning my husband and I took our three children on a long walk/scoot to a local park that is probably two miles away. We had seen the recent police guidance that said stopping for a snack during a long period of exercise is allowed, so we packed some crisps, fruit and our water bottles, intending to have them in the park before heading back home. We have twin DSes, four, and a one year old DD.

While sitting in the park (in a green space, far from any paths, with no one nearby) two police officers approached and said we needed to move on because what we were doing was against guidelines and someone had called to report us. It wasn’t a problem to leave, but I was a little annoyed by the situation. I mentioned the guidelines regarding a snack during long exercise and they seemed unaware of this, and asked to see it on my phone. They then said that it was an issue of public perception, which I understand, but I’m not sure why that would impact the legality of our actions. One officer suggested that we should have gone to a park closer to our house, but the space isn’t really comparable and it’s more of a play park: lots of equipment that is currently covered in caution tape.

I don’t know really why I’m writing this, except I feel frustrated. We’ve followed all the guidelines for the past month and it’s annoying that the police seem unaware of the guidance that has been made publicly available that says what we did was acceptable. It was also just really nice to go slightly further than the one mile radius around our house and enjoy seeing the flowers in the park, and it feels like it put a dampener on the morning.

I've just seen a video where a man tells a policeman he wasn't doing anything wrong and the policeman says he'll make something up with a shrug of his shoulders. Some don't know the government issue guidelines. Some are power hungry twats.

They were right, it is a public perception issues. Which they have epically mishandled. They should have told off the idiot that called them for wasting police time over non-crimes.

Sweetheart1313 "I dont understand why people cant sit down in a park or even sunbathe if 2m apart" The reasons for this are clear to me ,that if one or two people do it then another 2 or 3 ,soon becomes 5 or 6 you get the picture .No 2 m distancing if 20 people in the park!

YANBU, but the police have a difficult job. The guidelines have been so woolly and changing and flexible depending on the size of one's ego, openly flouted by Bozza - off to Naice Chequers not poky flat to recuperate, ditto that Scottish minister. This has led to jobsworth power-hungry police bullying people, mean-spirited gits reporting tame, innocent behaving and sheep being terrified of thinking for themselves so reporting anyone who might be law-breaking without using their own minds to work out risk or possiblilities.

The issue with parks is, if one family is seen to sit and eat in a park and not stopped when police spot them, then others might copy but stay all day or hook up with friends, and then there is increased danger of spreading the virus. So it makes sense to stop and have a snack in the least obtrusive place possible.The more public you are, however legitimate, the more likely you are to be asked to move on, so the wrong general example isn't set, which makes sense, even if it isn't fair to you personally on a specific occasion.

behaviour not behaving

I have been following guidelines and have walked a fair distance with my dog(she loves lockdown ,everyone at home ,walkies by mummy and daddy and big Sis. )However I have not been driving which we were not to do .Yet I know of several people who regularly drive to areas with their dog!

It is all about perception. The person reporting doesn't know where you came from and just saw you sit down to what looked like a picnic.

Maybe the park has had issues with people not social distancing previously and that's why the Police were so close at hand and the person reported.

While you just had a snack and moved on OP, there will be a people who will use this new guidance as an excuse for outings/ picnics disguised exercise, especially when the weather gets warmer.

Can I remind everybody to glance occasionally in the government's direction? They're the ones, paid by us, who should be under the greatest scrutiny in all this, rather than people in the park. I have a lot of worries about what the government is doing: as well as the very clear issues about protecting hospital staff, are they watching the economy to make sure it doesn't fall into total decimation? Are they going to pay self-employed people whose work they've confiscated when they say they will? Are they keeping an eye out for signs that the lockdown might be doing more harm than good? Are they going to bring the lockdown to an end at the right time? Are they using 1984 or Fahrenheit 451 as a blueprint?

As for the police, instead of patrolling parks to pounce on picnickers, perhaps their priorities should be:

• patrolling unattended business premises likely to be burgled
• employers treating their workforce badly
• investigating the many scams which are appearing as a result of this
• arresting vigilante self-appointed lockdown enforcers (the vandals in particular).

The police and the government are going to lose the public support eventually, if they're not careful.

we needed to move on because what we were doing was against guidelines

You were observing physical & social distancing.

The big problem is - as we saw before lockdown - that if lots of people try to do what you were doing, it becomes more difficult to maintain social & physical distancing, and everyone's activities become more risky.

That's the problem. One person/family doing it - OK. BUt everyone doing it - not OK.

Surely if there was time for someone to call the police and time for them to get there, you were sitting eating your crisps for a lot longer than a quick snack? If it’s as you describe that wouldn’t take more than 5/10 max minutes?

There are an awful lot of people making up rules here - we mustn’t go out unless essential and exercise isn’t essential, we mustn’t go out if we have a garden, we mustn’t drive to exercise, we may have an accident if we drive somewhere, we can’t give toddlers a snack, if we enter an empty space crowds will drawn to us by some magical force until it is impossible to be 2 metres apart.... It is all rubbish.

The government wants us to exercise, and not just in our gardens, because that way we stay healthy and reduce demand on the nhs. This is everyone - toddlers as well as older people (under 70) as long as they are not needing to isolate. They have given examples of exercise as walking, running, cycling but it is not limited to that and for some groups such as young children other forms may be appropriate such as chasing a ball - so long as we stay within household groups. If you haven’t exercised before then it is important that you do now to protect yourself (and the nhs) from succumbing to the virus. The important bit is to maintain social distance as you exercise so for many a short drive is helpful for this. And for children it may be necessary in order to find a safe space to exercise away from roads.

The thing is, the guidelines were updated because if all the "ah but.." and "that's not what the law says". These were hastily invoked high level laws that couldn't possibly cover every scenario. However, the principle is still that you shouldn't be leaving your home unless it's essential. Getting out for fresh air and exercise is essential. Taking very young children on a 5-6 mile + scooter and picnic when you have somewhere closer to home that you can go doesn't fit with the principle no matter how much you dress it up and justify it to yourself and others.

Don't understand why you had to stop to have a picnic. What's wrong with an apple, banana etc whilst walking?

We were out cycling and a group of cyclists had stopped and were eating/drinking ahead, as we got close a policeman asked if they were a household (they were) and said 10 mins max because others need the benches too. Thought it was a fair balanced reaction

@Splitsunrise I’ve addressed this several times. I assume the police were already in the park. It only takes about ten minutes to walk from one side of the park to the other, so very reasonable that they could have made it to us quite quickly.

@WaxOnFeckOff I think we’ll have to agree to disagree. If the principle is that we shouldn’t leave the house unnecessarily, then that’s what the guidelines should say. They don’t, so we chose to take a longer period of exercise with a short break halfway through. And two miles round trip makes four miles total, not 5-6.

Don't understand why you had to stop to have a picnic. What's wrong with an apple, banana etc whilst walking?

They had fruit and crisps, ffs, they didn't bring a hamper. And the police guidelines say stopping to eat lunch during a long walk is ok. As is a short rest.

There's no need for all this nit picking. The OP had read what's reasonable, and was within those parameters.

It's 4 miles if you don't go round the park. I presume that you'd spend time going round the park as well? And yes we will have to disagree as you know what the principle is. The guidelines had to be updated as the principle can't be legally enforced. So it's back to the point that just because you can do something, it doesn't mean you should or that it's the right thing to do.

Just to give a bit of perspective on timing, if you call 999, get straight through to police emergency, give the details and it is passed through to a police officer for an immediate response on blue lights, there is a 6-7 minute delay between the call and the job being given out. Presumably, whoever called the police called on 101, which is slower still. Then the operators have to find an officer in your area, have the conversation regarding the incident, deploy them and they have to travel to you. I don't believe for a second you were only sat there for 10 minutes.

It would look like you were having a picnic in a park even though you weren't. People see you doing it then others do it and before we know it there's loads of families in the park picnicking. There's no limit on how long you go for a walk and I very doubt there's any 'rules' on stopping for water or a snack but it's how it's perceived. It does say no more than 2 people should be gathered in a public area so in this case there was 5 and to anyone walking by, you were all stopped for a picnic which isn't encouraged

We're on the edge of a hill and it's much quieter to walk up there or along the country lanes, problem is you tend to walk further. Also, if DH and I go out together, he tends to want to do it middle of the day (his long lunchtbreak at the moment) but I'm hungry. So glad I saw the police guidelines, we won't be having a picnic but we can sit down on the grass for 5/10 minutes with some fruit or a sandwich and some water, good for our mentality as well as we can enjoy the view.

However, the principle is still that you shouldn't be leaving your home unless it's essential

No, it isn’t. The principle is that you shouldn’t leave your home without reasonable excuse. The guidelines were updated because too many people were saying the principle was ‘absolutely essential’ when it isn’t. We do not need as tight a lockdown as so many people on here seem to be craving. The purpose of the lockdown was to ensure we didn’t have more patients needing ventilators than we had ventilators available at any one time. They weren’t intended to (and experts say they can’t) make the virus go away. We will continue to need some form of measures in place until there is a vaccine or so many people have developed immunity that it doesn’t spread much. That could be a couple of years away. Unnecessarily strict interpretations on the lockdown will make that harder to maintain for as long as is necessary.

Two sides to every story and all that

10Storeylovesong and if you approach a policeman walking round the park and point out a small family group sat a hundred yards away then they could be there in a couple of minutes.

It does say no more than 2 people should be gathered in a public area

No it doesn’t. Households, even if a dozen of them, can exercise together in a public area.

Sitting in a park eating crisps and fruit and having a drink would be a mini picnic for lots of people.

OP does not even mention a blanket, let alone the scotch eggs, sticky buns and lashings and lashings of ginger beer required to qualify as a picnic.

Your picnics sound shit.

I don't believe for a second you were only sat there for 10 minutes.

The large parks near us are patrolled by police and we are in a less affect region. This seems to be the case in many areas, so not at all unlikely that the police were available to someone to report.