Redland house fined almost £5,000 for hosting house party

People attempted to hide in bedrooms before being found by the police


A Redland household has been fined collectively almost £5,000 for hosting a house party of more than 15 people after six organisers were fined £800 each.

Guests decided to play hide and seek with the police and hide in upstairs bedrooms, while the hosts stayed in the living room to maintain the illusion that no one else was there.

However, after the police told them they were going to start checking bedrooms and for them “to start being adults”, it quickly emerged that multiple people were hiding in the house.

Clearly the officers felt the guests weren’t behaving like “adults”. After rounding up all the guests, they decided to do a call and response exercise to test their knowledge of the Covid regulations.

They asked, “Are we all aware of the Coronavirus regulations?” and “Where can we meet if we are meeting together?” to meek responses of “yes” and “outside”.

Having been schooled by officers, the guests were then firmly put in their place with one officer telling them: “This is totally unacceptable and flies in the face of everything we’ve been doing as a nation for the past year”.

Despite lockdown restrictions easing, it is currently still illegal for more than one household to meet indoors. Next month, from May 17th onwards, people can meet in groups of up to 30 outdoors and two households indoors.

In a statement issued by Avon and Somerset Police, Inspector Ruth Gawler said: “Our approach to dealing with such incidents remains the same – we will engage with the public, explain the rules and encourage them to comply. But enforcement through fines remains an option, especially for those responsible for the blatant and deliberate breaches we’ve been called out to deal with in recent days”.

Approximately 55,000 Covid-19 breaches have been reported to Avon and Somerset Police since March 2020 with 2,193 fixed penalty notices issued in that time.

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Over 40 fines were issued for parties across Bristol last weekend