{"id":205039,"date":"2020-04-03T15:33:55","date_gmt":"2020-04-03T15:33:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=205039"},"modified":"2020-04-05T08:15:47","modified_gmt":"2020-04-05T08:15:47","slug":"coronavirus-woman-fined-660-for-refusing-to-tell-police-reasons-for-travel-to-have-wrongful-conviction-quashed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=205039","title":{"rendered":"Coronavirus: Woman fined \u00a3660 for refusing to tell police reasons for travel to have conviction quashed"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lizzie Dearden \u2013 The Independent April 3, 2020 via Yahoo News<\/h1>\n

\"\"<\/a>A woman who was fined \u00a3660 <\/a><\/strong><\/span>had been wrongfully charged with a crime under new coronavirus <\/strong><\/span><\/a>laws, police have admitted.<\/span><\/p>\n

Marie Dinou, 41, had refused to give police officers her name, address or reasons for travel.<\/span><\/p>\n

They questioned her because she was \u201cloitering between platforms\u201d at Newcastle Central station on Saturday.<\/span><\/p>\n

She was convicted of an offence under the Coronavirus Act 2020 at North Tyneside Magistrates\u2019 Court on Monday, despite not being present at the hearing<\/strong><\/span>.<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

A judge fined her \u00a3660 and ordered her to pay a \u00a366 victim surcharge and \u00a385 in costs.<\/span><\/p>\n

Following concerns raised by legal professionals, the conviction is to be quashed and police admitted it \u201cshouldn\u2019t have happened\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

It comes amid confusion over the extent of the new coronavirus laws <\/strong><\/span><\/a>and concern about inconsistent enforcement between different police forces.<\/span><\/p>\n

British Transport Police (BTP) said it had conducted a review with the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) that \u201cestablished that Marie Dinou was charged under the incorrect section of the Coronavirus Act 2020\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

In response to questions from The Independent<\/em>, the force said it had asked North Tyneside Magistrates\u2019 Court for the case to be relisted and the conviction to be set aside.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHaving reassessed the matter, BTP will not pursue any alternative prosecution,\u201d a spokesperson said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ms Dinou had been kept in police custody for two full days between her arrest on Saturday morning and the court hearing on Monday.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ms Dinou had been suspected of a railway ticket offence, but the Coronavirus Act 2020 \u2013 which only applies to \u201cpotentially infectious persons\u201d was used to prosecute her instead.<\/span><\/p>\n

Deputy Chief Constable Adrian Hanstock said \u201cThere will be understandable concern that our interpretation of this new legislation has resulted in an ineffective prosecution.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis was in circumstances where officers were properly dealing with someone who was behaving suspiciously in the station, and who staff believed to be travelling without a valid ticket. Officers were rightfully challenging her unnecessary travel.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cRegardless, we fully accept that this shouldn\u2019t have happened and we apologise. It is highly unusual that a case can pass through a number of controls in the criminal justice process and fail in this way.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Continues \u2026<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While the fine and conviction have been quashed, this is still another indication of society\u2019s slide toward totalitarianism <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[105,58],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-205039","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-coronavirus","category-Current_Affairs"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205039","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=205039"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205039\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":205044,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205039\/revisions\/205044"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=205039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=205039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=205039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}