RLC said it was assisting a number of clients who have been issued $1,000 and $3,000 Covid-19 fines for sitting in a park, away from others, not gathering and not in LGA areas of concern.
Samantha Lee, solicitor with the police accountability practice at the RLC, said: “If police have issued a fine to someone just because they were sitting and not breaching the Covid rules, then that fine should be dismissed.
“We are concerned that the cases we are seeing are just the tip of the iceberg, and that many more people may have been fined by police when they were not doing anything wrong,” she said.
Ms Lee said under the public health orders, people are allowed to sit outside for relaxation, or to eat, drink or read.
She called for better police training and for the release of any NSW Police guidelines or standard operating procedures related to public health orders.
Read full article (Sydney Sentinal, 27 August 2021)
