Social Distancing? UK Bans Overnight Visits with Anyone Not from Your Household
June 3, 2020 in News by RBN Staff
Source: needtoknow
The government has effectively made it illegal for people who don’t already live together to have sex, as that would be considered a “gathering”, and against the coronavirus lockdown social distancing laws.
New amendments to the lockdown law loosen most of the major restrictions than had been put in place in March, including easing restrictions on senior citizens and those with underlying health conditions. Schools can reopen on Monday, and people can gather outside, including in gardens, in numbers of up to six as long as social distancing is still maintained.
But a new line to the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) Bill adds on Monday: “No person may participate in a gathering which takes place in a public or private place indoors, and consists of two or more persons.”
It says elsewhere, according to The Mirror, that “no person may, without reasonable excuse, stay overnight at any place other than the place where they are living”.
The law means that both the person visiting and the person whose house is being visited could be fined £100, or £50 if paid within 14 days.
Lawyers went to work on Twitter to discuss the interpretation of the law, with Human rights barrister Adam Wagner writing on Sunday: “I can’t believe I’m about to tweet this. From tomorrow sex between two (or more) people in a private place who do not live in the same household is a ‘gathering’ between 2 or more people and is therefore illegal.”
However, George Pertez QC put forth that if the visitor was a prostitute, then that might be permissible “as that is reasonably necessary for work purposes”.
