Coronavirus: Police use drone to shout messages at people telling them to go home amid Easter crackdown

Surrey and Sussex forces using aerial technology to deliver messages to people violating lockdown

Police are using a talking drone to tell people suspected of breaching coronavirus restrictions to go home amid an Easter crackdown.

Forces across the UK have increased patrols of parks, beauty spots and beaches amid fears that warm and sunny weather will tempt people to violate the lockdown.

But police in Surrey and Sussex are now using tactics previously seen in China, Spain and Italy to deliver messages telling people they are in breach of government guidelines.

The “sky talk” drone was deployed by Surrey Police to target a group of 30 people who were not abiding by social distancing measures in Walton-on-Thames on Good Friday.

It plays a pre-recorded message saying: “Attention, this is a police message. You are gathering in breach of government guidelines to stay at home in response to the coronavirus. You are putting lives at risk. Please disperse immediately and return home.”

Surrey Police said the group left without officers having to take further action.

The message may draw controversy after a parliamentary committee warned that police should only be enforcing the law, rather than stricter government guidance which is not legally binding.

Surrey Police said the drone would be used to direct groups of people congregating in outdoor spaces to leave “without physically putting officers at additional risk by approaching them”.

“The use of a drone has been used by Surrey Police and Sussex Police since the introduction of the new legislation,” a spokesperson added.

“The use of the drone makes it quicker to access groups of people while encouraging them to do the right thing.”

The force said people had been ignoring the ban on gatherings and social distancing over the Easter break, including a group of cyclists at beauty spot Box Hill.

The use of the drone to play messages comes after Derbyshire Police was criticised for taking drone footage of ramblers, dog walkers and people taking pictures in the Peak District last month.

While government guidance states that people must only exercise outside once a day, the separate Health Protection Regulations, which give police powers to arrest and fine people, do not set a limit except in Wales.

The law does not define “essential travel”, but several police forces said they would be stopping vehicles and checking the reasons for people’s journeys over Easter.

Cambridgeshire Police was forced to backtrack on a tweet from one of its officers on Friday after they patrolled the “non-essential aisles” at a supermarket.

While the legislation forced the closure of many types of shops, there is no restriction on what can be purchased in those remaining open.

A report by the Joint Committee on Human Rights said police may be punishing members of the public “without any legal basis”, and that some forces were “taking a more proactive approach than is necessary and perhaps even lawful”.

It said “widespread confusion as to what people are and are not permitted to do” was leading to violations of fundamental freedoms, with people being questioned, fined and even arrested when they have not broken the law.

There has already been at least one miscarriage of justice, which saw a woman wrongly fined £660 under the Coronavirus Act 2020 for a crime she did not commit.

North Yorkshire Police has stood its “vehicle engagement points” down (AF (AFP/Getty)

Harriet Harman, chair of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, called the lockdown “the most significant and blanket interference with individual liberty in modern times”.

She said the “extreme measures” can only be lawful if justified by potential loss of life, and “if the measures are enforced in a clear, reasonable and balanced manner, enforcement is authorised, and does not go beyond what is prohibited by law”.

The National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) and College of Policing have issued guidance to officers and stressed that arrests and fines should only be used as a last resort.

Priti Patel said the government did not want “heavy-handed law enforcement”.

Speaking to Talk Radio on Thursday, the home secretary added: “Not everybody’s going to get this right and it has taken a couple of weeks for these measures to bed in because this has been unprecedented.”

The lockdown is expected to be extended in a review next week, after the UK recorded its highest number of deaths in a single day on Friday.