Two Harrogate district women who lost parents during the pandemic have given their reaction to the news the Prime Minister and Chancellor will receive fines for lockdown parties.

Tracey Jones and Tracy Atkinson were unable to be with their parents as they died due to covid restrictions and found it difficult to hear about the parties at Downing Street.

Ms Jones, from Ripon, lost her dad Tony Wass in February 2021. She said the Prime Minister should resign saying his actions were “selfish and barbaric”.

Tony Wass, aged 58, after completing a Great North Run.

She said:

“I couldn’t hold my dad’s hand as he died but our Prime Minister was having parties. I do think he should resign but I understand they can’t all resign. I can’t put it into words, it makes me so angry. They are supposed to be leading by example but instead they were being completely selfish.

“They were just so out of touch with what people were going through. If he doesn’t resign he needs to meet with families face to face to make him understand what we went through.”

In June 2020, Tracy Atkinson from Harrogate lost her mum Carol Ann Alton. Carol didn’t die of coronavirus but because she was in a care home her daughter couldn’t be with her:

“It’s a joke, so many people were desperate to be with their loved ones but couldn’t. I think they need bigger fines but if he did resign who would take over? There’s no much going on in the world now and we need a steady leader, however upsetting I find his actions.”

Carol Ann Alton (centre bottom), her son Richard, husband Richard and daughter Tracy.

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Susie Little set up the Facebook group Covid Co-Operation, Harrogate, as the first lockdown began, and co-ordinated a huge amount of community support. Speaking today, she said:

“It is yet another insult to the families of people of all ages who died alone from Covid 19 and were denied basic human rights and rituals by the very people who created and imposed the lockdown rules.”

More than seven out of 10 fines for breaches of lockdown restrictions in North Yorkshire have been handed to men, according to police figures.

North Yorkshire Police revealed yesterday it has issued 328 fixed penalty notices since the third lockdown started.

Of that number, 235 have been to men — 72 per cent of all fines issued so far. Ninety-three have been to women.

Nearly half of the fines have been to people aged 18 to 25.

A total of 160 have been issued for indoor gatherings, some of which have been for house parties.

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Superintendent Mike Walker said officers have to deal with reports of house parties “every night of the week”, mainly in the Scarborough district and York.

Total number of lockdown fines issued by North Yorkshire Police since January 6. Data: North Yorkshire Police.

In Harrogate, 22 of the 34 fixed penalty notices since the third lockdown began on January 6 have been issued for being outside without good reason. 

Police have handed 27 of the fines to men. However, most of the breaches have been committed by people from outside the area with just 11 notices given to local residents.

It comes as police pledged to get tougher on those who breach lockdown restrictions and said they would no longer “waste time” with rule breakers.

Superintendent Mike Walker, North Yorkshire Police.

Yesterday Superintendent Walker told a meeting of North Yorkshire Local Resilience Forum, the partnership organisation that leads the county’s response to covid, that officers continued to issue fines but had seen an improvement in the last week.

A total of 87 fines were handed out across the county in week three of lockdown compared with 134 in week two. He said:

“We are starting to see slightly better compliance. 

“But we are still having to issue fixed penalty notices to people who do not believe that the regulations are there to follow.”

He added he felt the message to stay at home was getting through to most people, but a minority do not feel it applies to them.

“People know what they should be doing and they know why they should be doing it, but they choose to ignore the warnings and the risks and choose to ignore the fact that over 100,000 people have died from the virus.

“They think that what they want to is more important or they think they won’t catch it.

“In my opinion, this is incredibly short-sighted, naive and plain wrong. This is a highly contagious and deadly virus. We’ve all seen the damage it can do and it does not discriminate.

“It only takes one contact with one contagious person who may be asymptomatic to contract the virus and potentially pass it on, an action which may end up with someone losing their life.”