Covid: House parties in Scarborough reported 'every night'

A police force says it is dealing with house parties "every night of the week" in the Scarborough area during the coronavirus lockdown.

North Yorkshire Police said it had fined 92 people at illegal indoor gatherings in the resort out of a total of 160 callouts across the county.

Supt Mike Walker told the Local Resilience forum people were "plain wrong" and "think they won't catch it".

Mr Walker said those breaking the rules were putting lives at risk.

He told a meeting of the North Yorkshire Local Resilience Forum that a majority of people were following the rules but some were ignoring the dangers.

He said: "House parties, particularly over on the coast, have been one of the main breaches of Covid regulations that we are dealing with.

"Officers are dealing with reports of house parties every night of the week.

"Of the 328 penalty notices we have issued across the county since the beginning of this lockdown 160 have been for indoor gatherings, 92 of those in Scarborough."

Mr Walker said he welcomed news that fines for house parties of more than 15 people were going to increase from £200 per person to £800 and hoped it would make people reconsider their actions.

He added: "There are a minority of people who think they can carry on doing what they like, when they like and that the same rules and regulations that apply to you or I don't apply to them.

"They know what they should be doing and why they should be doing it but they choose to ignore the warnings.

"They choose to ignore the fact that over 100,000 people have died from the virus because what they think what they want to do is more important or they think they won't catch it.

"In my opinion this is incredibly short-sighted, naive and plain wrong."

In the last week 87 fines have been handed out across North Yorkshire for a variety of offences, 32 of them in the Scarborough borough.

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