£10,000 Lockdown Fine Case Collapses – “Hundreds” More to Follow, Says Lawyer
Hundreds of restaurants and gyms hit with lockdown fines could see their fixed penalties revoked in the courts, a leading lawyer has suggested. MailOnline has more.
Twenty-three such cases have already collapsed so far, with more than 800 more having “strong cases” for potential appeals, solicitor advocate Lucinda Nicholls, of Nicholls & Nicholls explained.
Ms. Nicholls said gyms were particularly susceptible to fines due to confusing official guidelines – including regulations that said those with a BMI higher than 40 were “entitled to go to a gym for exercise”.
“Therefore gyms were allowed to be open for that category of customer,” she told the Times.
Now legal experts across the country have accused official bodies of showing ignorance for the exceptions to lockdown restrictions that saw businesses wrongly hit with financial penalties.
The developments come after a gym owner who faced a £10,000 fine for keeping his gym open during the second lockdown saw the “flimsy” and “inept” case against him dropped.
Alex Lowndes, who owns Gainz Fitness and Strength in Bedford and St Neots in Cambridgeshire, refused to close his gym in November 2020 after COVID-19 restrictions were imposed. Mr Lowndes’ establishment was subsequently raided by police and he was charged with a breach of lockdown regulations, which he denied.
The businessman failed to pay the fixed penalty notice and was due to stand trial last March, however his case, defended by Ms. Nicholls, collapsed after the authority failed to gather sufficient evidence to prosecute.
Bedford Borough Council said the case was in the “public interest”, they enforced the rules at the time and that there was “ample evidence for a successful prosecution”.
The CPS has said each lockdown fine would be considered on its individual merits.
Mr Lowndes told the BBC: “They [the council] should have looked at it even six months in and gone ‘this is a waste of time’. But they kept going and they kept going, they brought in an external barrister, they kept spending money, and it just got out of control.”
He added: “[Contesting the case] was based on principle. We should never have shut in the first place and we stand by what we did at the time.”
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There was no emergency, and, even if there was, there was no evidence the lockups had any benefit. So, the necessary criteria of the precautionary principle (that government must not act unless it knows, through supporting evidence it is acting for the good) was not met.
The precautionary principle cannot be an iron law. If enough is at stake then it must be right to consider extreme and untested measures.
Unfortunately the argument at the time was lost and most of the public thought the risk was severe enough to try all those crazy things.
Most people’s minds are so softened that if they hear someone in authority say “A, because B”, they think A is fine because there’s a reason for it.
Even salesmen are taught that.
Yes people can be easily led. So I think we have to question whether our current style of democracy is up to the challenge of dealing with emergencies, actual or perceived.
It seems that precious few constitutions were up to the task, even the USA who are supposed to be all about basic liberty.
Constitutions can’t survive the abandonment of the ideas behind them.
“I think we have to question whether our current style of democracy is
up to the challenge of dealing with emergencies,fit for purpose”The opinion of our so-called democratically elected leaders is It isn’t. That’s why they basically abolished everything except the selection process which got them into office.
Salesmen are only taught that by unscrupulous trainers who believe that the salesmen’s needs are more important than the customer’s
The precautionary principle says that Government have to justify what they are doing … not the other way around. It is not up to the ordinary people they foist their measures on to disprove it, it is up to them to justify what they are doing.
Too often the behaviour of government is to push through a policy, without any evidence to back it up, and then to attack & repress anyone who dares to present evidence showing the government is wrong.
The precautionary principle, simply says the onus is on government to produce a robust case, not on the self-funded people & community groups to try to prove, often in the absence of any evidence being presented by government, that the government are not just wrong (but all too often, wrong beyond all possible doubt).
You’ve just stated another principle that is not the precautionary principle.
Sure the government should always have to win the argument what they are doing is justified. And the sad thing is, they did.
The government made sure that the argument was not allowed to take place, especially in relation to the warp speed sauce.
If it’s true that a jab was patented around 2015, and that the US government started to patent SARS-CoV viruses 20 years ago, it wasn’t really warp speed. It was just a product that was largely untested on humans. The perpetrators were waiting for a sufficient excuse to override normal safety precautions and start the experiments.
As far as I’m aware, the precautionary principle was never cited by our government. Had it been, the emphasis would have been to do nothing until the scientific evidence demonstrated that lockdowns/masks/SD and ‘vaccinations’ worked.
Most government used the “Run around like headless chickens” principle. Hoover up every daft idea offered by unqualified civil servants and hope that at least one of them works no matter the damage to society if few, or any of them, do work.
I think you are being too generous.
At best they saw an opportunity to make a shit load of cash off the back of the pandemic scare giving them carte blanche to serve up fat contracts to their mates.
At worst this was set up to take place on a global basis well in advance.
It looks to me like the latter.
In other words; if you want me to change my behavoir (e.g put on a mask, stay home, get jabbed, etc), then it is on you to produce such argument and evidence to compel my behavoir change. It is not for me to justify why I have not changed my behavoir.
I suppose it is too much to expect anyone to show me scientific proof that Carbon Dioxide is causing “catrostopic man made global warming”
Assuming increasing atmospheric CO2 is causing the planet to warm:
Atmospheric CO2 levels in 1850 (beginning of the Industrial Revolution): ~280ppm (parts per million atmospheric content) (Vostok Ice Core).
Atmospheric CO2 level in 2021: ~410ppm. (Mauna Loa).
410ppm minus 280ppm = 130ppm ÷ 171 years (2021 minus 1850) = 0.76ppm of which man is responsible for ~3% = ~0.02ppm.
That’s every human on the planet and every industrial process adding ~0.02ppm CO2 to the atmosphere per year on average.
At that rate mankind’s CO2 contribution would take ~25,000 years to double which, the IPCC states, would cause around 2°C of temperature rise.
That’s ~0.0001°C increase per year for ~25,000 years.
A smack in the mouth from Mr Plod’s truncheon is often considered enough justification for you to change your behaviour.
ably abetted by MSM calling for sooner, harder, faster, longer
The precautionary principle cannot be an iron law. If enough is at stake then it must be right to consider extreme and untested measures.
That would qualify as reckless in my opinion. The more is at stake, the more carefully steps one could take need to be weighted and the better the argument for Repeat what worked last time becomes. Humans come up with loads of new and untested ideas all the time and the overwhelming majority of them ends up being discarded as nonsensical and/ or harmful.
No ‘Emergency’ but Johnson Governs with the option of still in place ‘Emergency Powers’ backed by all but around 16% of MPs.
All he needs is to revive Covid whenever he pleases. Something wrong here?
Then again, as Truss has now declared Proxy War on Russia and put in an extraordinary jaw-dropping bid for Nato World Domination, presumably Johnson is using that excuse to carry on with his permanent “Emergency ( do as I please) Rule Option”, unhindered of course by a servile Parliament, or Constitutional Judge ( do we have any ) and an equally servile Speaker?
How long before the “Lord Protector” ( keeping us “Safe”) is announced to the trembling public?
And lockdown is precautionary in the same way punches from Mike Tyson are precautionary.
“I’m cautiously reducing the number of times Mike Tyson punches me, it would be reckless to stop immediately’….
Will the taxpayers get a rebate for this obscene waste of money .No i expect not .Little Englanders at their worst.
A rebate from whom? The other taxpayers?
From bojos deep pocket- perhaps!
Win, then throw the book at them with compensation for loss of business and personal stress.
Form an orderly queue now. Social distancing not required – oops it probably never was.
Sounds like he did break the law but the council was too incompetent to do the prosecution properly.
Which isn’t to say the law wasn’t an ass.
I wonder that if given the long list of threats, raiding, ticketing, legal escalation….and failing to prosecute due to insufficient evidence, there could be a counter claim for loss of business earnings? May all be moot?
“confusing official guidelines – including regulations that said those with a BMI higher than 40 were ‘entitled to go to a gym for exercise’.”
Never heard of that before. Can someone post a link?
That’s strange stuff. If you have a BMI of 40, you could get on the road to better health by ceasing to scoff so much carb-heavy food and by striding to the end of the road and back each day, building up to a daily jog around the park.
Is there official advice saying “Go to the gym, fatso; we’ve paid Mr Big the Gym Owner to look after you” – advice that Mr Big will be happy to hear and that both he and “the NHᛋ” know that most BMI 40-plussers won’t follow anyway? This sounds like Covid scam number 4073.
Someone 5 ft 11 tall with a BMI of 40 would weigh 20 st 6.
NHᛋ
I like that.
Eddie Hall has a BMI of 45.
Btw, jogging when you are really badly overweight will destroy your knees
Not just overweight. Knees have a finite life. I’ve never been overweight but 30+ years of competitive rugby has screwed both mine. Of course I’m at the back of a very long queue to get them looked at!
Can we see some STIFF fines and preferably jail sentences for the people who pursued these ridiculous prosecutions.
The people who initiated these prosecutions should THEMSELVES face prosecution for misuse of public funds. Why should the taxpayer or council taxpayer pay for this??
That’s Sane world. We’ve never had it and we’ll never get it.
THREE CHEERS FOR THAT MAN
Good news….. anyone remember police poking around shopping trolleys for non essential goods?
Heard today of a brave Policewoman who told a friend that she had refused to go around checking for oppressive ‘Covid Rule’ violations and who was taken the beat and stuffed in an office as punishment. We need more stories like this!
Is she still in the police force?
Lucidly rejecting just a single lie told by the system can eventually open the floodgates, and those who are in charge of the system know it.
Getting an office job is considered a cushy number.
They exist:
Senior Victoria police officer resigns, claims most cops ‘don’t believe’ in COVID rules | Sky News Australia
For another – and more detail on the Victorian police:
The Fall of the World’s Most Liveable City, through the eyes of those who risked everything to save it. – Battleground Melbourne
And some aisles in supermarkets being roped off, as they contained “non essential” items? I think that was only in Wales. But “non essential” shops in England had to close, you know, those selling trivial items like shoes.
It was all bonkers. I knew it, lots of us knew it, and those doing it must have known it too. But still they did it
I liked the story of the man who went shopping in a Tesco store in South Wales naked, because if clothes weren’t essential, then that must mean he didn’t need them.
(Actually he kept his underpants, shoes, and socks on. “Naked” was just tabloidese for “Read this article and don’t miss the adverts”, but still – bravo for the creativity and pure sanity of resistance.)
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/man-who-shopped-naked-tesco-22906920
The local Sainsbury’s had a sign in the window which stated that lottery tickets weren’t being sold (this was first lockdown), as they weren’t an essential item.
That’s also a pandemic yardstick I came up with: The first sign that there’s a dangerous, communicable disease afoot and that people must stay away from other people as much as possible would be eliminated the #1 useless reason why people engage with other people, namely, Buying lottery tickets. For as long as the lottery is kept going, they situation cannot be that desparate.
So MORE tax payer money to be wasted over stupid prosecutions for stupid lockdown. Those that were not cowed by the bojo shenanigans are to be harassed
Having such a good laugh at Bedford Council.
This needs to be dealt with as well. Council racks up costs as each successive legal entity (Lawyer, Barrister, whatever) says “yes, of course this looks like a case you can win” in the full knowledge it can’t be won, but also in the full knowledge there is a bottomless pit of money to be accessed.
Why are there never any sackings following these financial blunders?
At least an investigation as to whether the recipients of this council largesse were connected in any way with Council Officers. (Squash Club, Lodge?)
So a fatty could go to the gym but not a fitty?
When the fatty was in the gym did they need to wear a mask if they were stood up but could go maskless if they were on a machine that had them sitting down?
How in the name of God (apologies to God but there are times it is justified) can some official pick the magic number of 40 and decree that gyms can be used by people with a BMI over 40 and not by people with a BMI under 40? (and then there is the argument about the absence of scientific justification for the BMI system as a health marker – don’t even add that into the mix)
Did they think to themselves “hey, our friends and buddies are all a bit on the porky side, and this is for them not for the plebs who we want to immiserate”?
Gwent Police kept the gyms open at their HQ throughout the pandemic. The Welsh Government has failed to take any action
Bravo to Mr Lowndes, however low marks to the Mail, how are we meant to objectify him – sorry, assess his BMI – if they will only publish pics of him fully clothed?
Ponder that if your BMI dropped below 40 while you were pumping iron, you became a disease-spreading criminal plague rat mid-rep.
That’s the level of lunacy that was imposed. And the courts didn’t blink twice about upholding it – all we’re seeing here is the institutional incompetence of the Clown Prosecution Service.