Police defend ‘shameful’ spot checks asking if train journeys are essential
Welsh police have come under fire for tweeting a photo of a spot check on a train passenger during the country’s firebreak lockdown.
Two officers were branded a ‘disgrace’ and ‘shameful’ after they were seen crowding very closely to the passenger in the empty carriage.
An accompanying message read: ‘We are checking if your journey is essential! Please stay at home!’
It was soon slammed online, with one person replying: ‘As a retired police officer I would feel very uneasy at the way you are dealing with this.
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‘Moreover your manner in these tweets is very confrontational and sounds very political. You will lose the public on this.’
Another wrote: ‘No sane person wants to be treated like this. The way the police are behaving is a disgrace.’
The force deleted the post following the backlash and published a series of tweets explaining the photo.
They wrote: ‘Right folks – the last tweet generated a fair amount of comment so let’s put a few things straight. Wales is on lockdown. You should not be out without a reasonable excuse.
‘It is our job to enforce the current regulations. We did this throughout the previous lockdown too. This means asking why people are travelling.
‘Tonight, everyone we have spoken to has been travelling legitimately. The lockdown is there to stop the spread of this virus. We all need to do our bit.
‘Only those who think the rules don’t apply to them and selfishly break them, need to be worried about being spoken to by us. We want this virus to go away as much as everyone else. We all need to do our bit to achieve that.’
The outrage comes after Welsh residents expressed their anger at the non-essential item ban taking place in supermarkets across the country.
Shops are prohibited from selling ‘non-essential’ products like clothes during Wales’ 17-day national lockdown.
A petition to scrap the ban has reached over 63,000 signatures, making it the largest petition ever presented to Welsh parliament.
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