Bleak House: The Punitive Regime of Richard Renouf

Bleak House: The Punitive Regime of Richard Renouf

“Legal practice gave me experience and understanding of Islanders’ needs. I learned to listen to people, represent their interests and achieve results for them.” (Deputy Richard Renouf, Election Manifesto)

It is notable that there have been breaches of social distancing as regulations on lockdown are relaxed, partly no doubt because, unlike Guernsey, Jersey has not opted for any kind of “household bubbles” on the path.

It is also clear from news reporting in the news media and on social media that groups have gathered outside, and clearly have not been maintaining social distancing. One has only to look at the fact that the area near La Fregate has been sealed off, or that noisy disturbances caused by gatherings were reported near the Winston Churchill Park in St Brelade, to see that this is the case.

The Deputy Health Minister – curiously not the Home Affairs Minister Len Norman whose remit covers policing – has now come up with a big stick to beat those who fail to socially distance. It notes that:

“The requirement to remain physically distant form others will be enforced by means of an offence of wilfully failing to comply with the direction of a police officer to cease to gather at less than 2 metres with someone who is from another household. The penalty is a fine of up to £1,000 (level 2 on the standard penalty scale).”

It notes a number of commonsense caveats, for instance, passing someone on a narrow pavement where social distancing is physically impossible is an exclusion, as is accidental occasional breaching of physical distance between parties, because these only happen momentarily.

Now so, far, well and good, but now the regulations come to the thorny subject of children. And it notes:

“Children are subject to the requirements to follow physical distancing, but the draft Regulations recognise that it is not always reasonable to give them a direction where they are under the oversight of an adult. To accommodate that, Regulation 3 provides that a person in charge of a child commits an offence if they wilfully fail to comply with the direction of a police officer to take reasonably practicable steps to stop the child breaching safe distancing. This maintains the safeguard of requiring a direction to be issued before an offence is committed.”

That makes sense with younger children, but remember that under the current law, a child is anyone under the age of 18. Now it cannot be deemed reasonable that parents should lock up children of 16 or older to prevent them going out alone, unless the Minister has that kind of Dickensian Victorian stern parent (who no doubt would also cane children!). So what provision is made then?

“This does not mean that the offences cannot apply to children. For example, if a child is not under the supervision of an adult, or wilfully fails to stop breaching safe distancing and is old enough to receive and understand a direction, then they are committing an offence. This is intended to manage the situation where under 18-year olds gather together in breach of the restrictions but without adults supervising.”

So to take an example, 16 to 17 year olds, if gathered together in breach of the restrictions without adults supervising can be fined up to £1,000. Clearly some children of that age may have £1,000 to pay a fine, but most will not, and how pray is this going to be policed?

There is no requirement for anyone to carry identity cards, and I’m not entirely convinced that children in such a gathering will be inclined to politely answer a request for their name and address. Perhaps when the proposition is debated, Deputy Renouf will explain this.

Of course, they could be arrested, but if they cannot pay the fine, what exactly is going to happen, apart from criminalising young people, making extra paperwork and court times probably for not much effect.

Indeed, wanting to fine people for breaking the distancing rules is fraught with problems and will in any event not make the slightest bit of difference. A senior UK police inspector was interviewed this on BBC Breakfast Time. He said that a huge number of prosecutions brought with regard to flouting Covid19 rules/guidelines had and were continuing to fail due to lack of evidence and even the wording of the law which because it was hurried had left much to be desired and open to interpretation - which of course defence lawyers have been very eager to exploit.

It should be noted that fines are determined not just on what the law prescribes as a penalty but also by the ability to pay. There is no point at all in fining someone a sum of money if they simply do not have the ability to pay. Perhaps when the proposition is debated, Deputy Renouf will explain this.

I hope the politicians will see no sense in going to the lengths of fines as they are simply not enforceable. The last thing we need right now is to generate resentment and clog up the courts. It needs to be remembered that a fine can only be imposed by a court (or sometimes a Centenier) on presentation of the facts either submitted or admitted by the accused. Fines cannot be imposed arbitrarily by the police or any other authority nor without there being the right to appeal. Perhaps when the proposition is debated, Deputy Renouf will explain this as well as the mechanism of appeal.

The idea of controlling the population - or elements of it - via increasingly punitive penalties - was tested to the limit in the 17th and 18th centuries in the UK, and never really worked. It took a first rank politician like Sir Robert Peel to see that the solution lay not in heavy penalties (which he abolished) but in better prevention, and of course he founded the modern police force. I'm surprised Deputy Renouf does not seem aware of that history.

I am amazed that Deputy Renouf has decided to go down this route. It reminds me of that enjoyed by the lawyers in Dicken’s “Bleak House” for whom mindless litigation is something to do as a substitute for any contact with the real world that the rest of us inhabit.