Federation Chair says enforcing the wearing of face masks set to be a challenge

THE Chairman of South Yorkshire Police Federation has said it will be a challenge for policing to enforce the wearing of face masks in shops and fears that it could be used as yet another excuse to police bash.

The Government has said that it will be mandatory to wear a face mask or covering in shops in England from 24 July, with fines of up to £100 for those who fail to comply.

South Yorkshire Police Federation Chairman Steve Kent spoke on the Emma Barnett Show on BBC Radio 5 Live this morning, saying he had two main concerns.

He said: “It’s going to potentially cause a big rise in demand [for police]. What we found in lockdown was that loads of people were calling us with sometimes petty comments about neighbours having people round. And it sometimes swamped our call handlers.

“I’m concerned that when this first happens there’s going to be a lot of uncertain shopkeepers who might get into conflict with customers and then quite rightly call the police. We don’t want to be issuing fines for this. We just want to engage with the public and educate them.”

Steve also talked about a rise in “anti-police rhetoric” in the media, saying: “I get the feeling we’re set up to fail here”.

He said: “When lockdown was happening some forces got picked on with the way that they issued fines. And there was a backlash in the media about that. So I’m a bit concerned that this might be seen as an excuse to attack the police if we have to resort – and I mean have to resort – to dishing fines out.”

Steve continued: “Officers are bouncing from incident to incident, and that could be really serious, like domestic violence, which we should rightly be prioritising. And then if we start getting calls saying Joe Bloggs isn’t putting his mask on in a shop it just adds to that strain.”

Steve said that most of his members would not want to give fines to people breaking the face mask rules. He said: “They will do everything they can to reason with that person, persuade them to put a face mask on or, if not, to leave. We police by consent in this country and contrary to the rhetoric at the minute, we don’t want to fall out with our communities.”