Key worker fined £2000 for Covid travel breach two years after incident

A technician who helped to keep the power on during the pandemic has been fined more than £2,000 for accidentally breaking Covid travel rules, in a prosecution brought more than two years after the incident.

Kevin Brown, 53, fell foul of the travel restrictions in February 2021 when he flew back to the UK from the Netherlands, at the end of a two-week stint maintaining off-shore wind turbines.

The technician for Boston Energy – who says he had been designated a “critical worker” – was negative for Covid in a PCR test taken 24 hours before flying into Manchester Airport.

However, he was stopped by a Border Agent for not having pre-booked ‘Day 2’ and ‘Day 8’ Covid tests in advance of his arrival in the UK.

Brown, from Rhyl in north Wales, was issued with a £1,000 fixed penalty fine on March 8 this year – 742 days after the initial stop at the airport.

When the fine was not paid, he was prosecuted in a case that concluded last month with a £2019 fine, costs of £90, and a £190 victim surcharge.

“I was employed to work in the Netherlands as an offshore wind turbine technician on a two-week on, two-week off rotation”, he told the court, in a note to accompany his guilty plea.

“During my rotation, the legislation had changed. I was unaware of this as I was in the Netherlands during my rotation. Before coming back to the UK, I thought I only needed a PCR test, as required by UK law.”

Brown added that he was forced to pay £210 at the airport for the required tests, and never received the results.

In a separate prosecution, Elber Lopes, 31, from Hayes, west London, was fined for flying back to the UK from Cape Verde – a ‘red list’ country - in July 2021.

He told the court his uncle had recently died and he flew out to be by his sick grandmother’s side in hospital.

“We feared for her life given her age and health conditions, so we decided as a family to be next to her in a tough period for our family”, he said.

“I had to be there for the person who raised me and is a mother to me.”

Lopes said he believed Cape Verde was on the ‘amber list’ rather than the ‘red list’ and had not booked himself a spot in a quarantine hotel for his return.

Before flying to the UK, Lopes realised his mistake but could not afford the hotel fee, he said, so decided to isolate for ten days before travelling and he took negative PCR tests.

“I had to make sure I was not a threat to the public prior to departing to London”, he said.

“When I received a fine one-and-a-half years on from July 2021, I must say I was extremely surprised and confused”, he added.

He said the fine - £5,000 – was an “absurd amount” which he could not afford, on top of £1,750 he had been forced to pay for a quarantine hotel stay which he likened to a “prison-like lock-up”.

“To receive a £5,000 fine a year-and-a-half later on top would ruin any hopes of having future financial stability, given my already difficult financial situation where I’m on overdraft with my bank every month”, he wrote.

Lopes pleaded guilty and was fined £485 with costs of £90 and a £49 court fee.

Prosecutions for Covid offences have been brought through the Single Justice Procedure and are dealt with behind-closed-doors without public hearings.

The Evening Standard reviewed six cases from May and found evidence in each of mistakes made by Border Force agents at the time of the original stops.

Jon-Paul Platt, 33, from Droylsden in Greater Manchester, was fined £1,153 for flying into the UK from Istanbul in March 2021 without the required testing package.

The border official who stopped him repeatedly spelled his name wrong on the official report, missed out several key pieces of information, and got the time of the flight wrong.

In a correction statement deploy in the court case, he conceded: “I do not know this now as it was two years ago”.

Several officers admitted failing to sign documents and details at the time, while in Brown’s case the official conceded he had failed to record which airport terminal the stop happened in and he had got the charges wrong on the form.

Prosecutions for pandemic offences continue unabated despite the lifting of restrictions in 2022. At least 13 cases are due before the courts this week, all dating back to 2021, for allegations of breaking travel restrictions and failing to wear a mask on public transport.