We may not be out of lockdown for Christmas if we don't follow the rules, says PCC

Police and Crime Commissioner for the West Midlands David Jamieson has said if people follow the rules now, then they can enjoy being with their families during the festive season.

While most of the public are behaving "extraordinarily well" in the new lockdown, he said there were those few that were not following the rules.

Mr Jamieson said: "The police have had to get engaged with some people who are disobeying the rules. In general people are as always behaving extraordinarily well, but a minority haven't been.

"The ones the police have been going after are mainly those trying to organise big events. At the last count we have given out nine of these £10,000 fines out now to people attempting to, or who were organising large events."

Mr Jamieson said officers were under an immense amount of pressure, and had specialist teams dedicated solely to Covid rule-breakers.

He added: "The thing to remember is that crime levels fell in March and April and that balanced out as a lot of police officers had Covid and were isolating. But what's happened now is crime is back to where it would usually be pre-Covid I'm afraid, so police are having to deal with crime as it was, and having to deal with the Covid-19 regulations as well.

"So there is a lot of pressure on the police at the moment. And as Christmas approaches I want the police looking out for drunk drivers, and the thing that usually happen around the festive season.

"We do tend to have more casualties around then. But there's only so much resource, and that resource is finite. That is the reality."

He said if people wanted a merry Christmas, they needed to follow the rules completely for the next few weeks.

"I'm hoping that we’re out of lockdown by Christmas and we can all get on with our lives and enjoy things but I think the reality is we may not be," he said. "All of us, we have to actually follow the rules in the next few weeks.

"And hope then that we have cracked down sufficiently on the spread of the virus, so that we can have a more open Christmas and people can enjoy being with their families which is what they want to do – that's what everyone wants to do. So I think if we're particularly compliant now it may help us later on in the year.

"The Government make the rules, the police do not make the rules, they are just charged with enforcing them. I'd like to see a bit of a steer from the Government on how they want the police to enforce the rules because the police don't want to be getting involved with family parties this Christmas. It's more large gatherings of people that are clearly breaking the rules.

"The chief constable will be putting on all the resources he possibly can, and a lot of officers will be taking their rest time. Police officers are human beings, they need their rest time as well to come back refreshed to the job. We'd like a lot more resources but I'm afraid that is the reality."