Essex Police has revealed further incidences of people breaching lockdown rules and ignoring the ‘stay at home’ message.

The force made national headlines at the weekend after officers broke up a party in Bury Road, Stewardstonebury, and handed £800 fines to all 18 people present.

Only one was from Essex.

Echo:

Police say the majority of people in the county are continuing to follow the lockdown rules and avoid all but essential travel.

However, officers dealt with a variety of incidents throughout January and have been forced to take action against lockdown flouters.

This includes:

  • Officers from Braintree’s Community Policing Team stopped a car for speeding just outside Rivenhall village on Saturday, January 24. The four men in the car had driven from Birmingham in snowy weather to pick up a new car.

While questioning them about their journey, officers also discovered that the four men were from two different households.

The driver was issued a speeding ticket and all four were issued fixed penalty notices for non-essential travel before being directed back home.

  • Officers from Basildon Community Policing Team issued a fine to a man who drove from the capital into Essex to test drive his new car.
  • In Wickford two people who had travelled all the way from Gillingham to celebrate their friend’s birthday were handed fixed penalty notices for non-essential travel.
  • Officers stopped a car in Waltham Abbey after finding seven people inside on January 23. They had travelled together from several Surrey households to Essex for a “music lesson”. Five fixed penalty notices were issued.

Echo:

  • In the early hours of the same day, patrolling officers issued two penalty notices after they stopped a car near to the Clacton seafront at 3.30am. The driver and his passenger had travelled from Barking to Clacton to sight-see, contravening a requirement not to travel unless an essential journey.
  • A car meet on January 23 saw 17 people handed fines for a mass gathering after travelling to a Canvey Island industrial estate in the early hours.
  • Police say it was one of the largest number of fines issued for a single Covid breach.

Essex Police says it will continue to engage and explain to people who are beaching the rules.

They will also encourage them to “do the right thing” before considering enforcement action.

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A spokesman added: “Again, we would ask of anyone about to organise a social gathering or to make a non-essential journey to stop and reconsider.

“Help those in the NHS, police, schools and everyone who is supporting us all through the pandemic to stay safe and stop the unnecessary spread of coronavirus.

“We want people to continue to report Covid breaches. You can make reports via our website by using our digital 101 service, where you can speak to one of our operators online live time, between 7am and 11pm.”