Sheffield police issue warning over being called out to enforce new masks in shops law

Steve Kent said he fears that enforcing the law, that a face covering must be worn in shops from July 24, could create tension between the police and public and become an opportunity to ‘police bash’.

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The Government has said face coverings in shops are mandatory from next week and those who fail to comply will be fined up to £100.

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Mr Kent 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.”

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He added: “I get the feeling we’re set up to fail here.

“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.

“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.”

He said most officers would not want to issues fines, adding: “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.”