Thread by @AdamWagner1

Oh my goodness - of the 44 charges under the Coronavirus Act reviewed by the Crown Prosecution Service all 44 were "incorrectly charged because there was no evidence they covered potentially infectious people, which is what this law is intended for"

cps.gov.uk/cps/news/cps-a… /1

Not clear how the 44 charges were chosen - are those the only 44 charges or those which caused concern so were prioritised? The latter would be bad but perhaps less worrying if these are part of a larger group of charges /2

Interesting that 38/44 were charged with other offences

I'm not sure how reassuring it is that the charges under the health protection regulations reviewed so far are mostly correctly charged - these are vague regulations. Also, there have been many thousands of fixed penalty notices given which presumably haven't been reviewed /3

The @PoliceChiefs chair has apologised "but".... /4

Many lawyers have been expressing concerns about the width of these powers and the lack of available data as to how often they are being used and against whom (not just charges but use of force, fixed penalty notices etc). These are complex new powers and understandable...

... that at first the police were confused about how to utilise them, and @PoliceChiefs and @CollegeofPolice have produced good guidance, but you do have to wonder if this is the tip of an iceberg of wrongful convictions.

Here are the latest figures from @PoliceChiefs for fixed penalty notices given out under the lockdown regulations 10 May. Interesting data:
👮‍♀️154,812 Covid-19 related incidents (includes advice)
👮‍♀️16,184 fixed penalty notices (peaked Easter weekend) ...
cdn.prgloo.com/media/download…

👮‍♀️Over 10k were 'regulation 6' breaches, i.e. leaving/being outside of home without reasonable excuse.
👮‍♀️81% given to men
👮‍♀️Very much skewing towards young people

👮‍♀️Appears a disproportionate number of fines being given out to Asian & black people
- 13% to Asian people (7.5% of population)
- 5% to black people (3.3% of population)
(ethnicity-facts-figures.service.gov.uk/uk-population-…)
I don't have population figures for younger groups - comparisons are to whole pop

Nb figures likely to be underestimates. Earlier figures have already been upped by 30%

"Owing to the time taken to process FPNs, figures presented here are likely to underestimate the volume of FPNs issued each day and will be updated with each release as new data are received."

There are some things potentially to worry about here:
- Seems young men, and to a larger extent than the population, young Asian and black men, are getting the bulk of the fines
- Very large focus on reg 6 - being outside your home without reasonable excuse - I have said...

... before that I think the restriction on gatherings hits most directly at the public health purpose of these powers, but those appear to be pretty rarely leading to fines, or maybe police using other powers such as direct to disperse or reasonable force

- we don't have data on how often police are deploying power to use reasonable force to enforce these laws. That is important, why not available?
- but generally it is really useful to have this data and should directly impact on @MattHancock's regular reviews of their necessity

- Important to remember that there could be a variety of reasons why there appear to be a disproportionate amount of young black and Asian men being fined. But this needs to be urgently considered

It may be that the Asian/black percentages are more in line with the younger population who are getting most of the fixed penalty notices - so could be proportionate to general population

https://twitter.com/MattSingh_/status/1261316892704362497?s=20