Police are 'struggling' to enforce coronavirus rules because there are not enough officers to crack down on the 10pm curfew breakers, a union boss warned today.
John Apter, national chairman of the Police Federation, said there were often now just 'one or two' officers available to police busy high streets in towns and cities at night when the curfew begins on pubs and restaurants.
He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: 'I think we're struggling now if I'm honest, certainly my colleagues are, because of just the daily pressures.'
Mr Apter added: 'Here's the reality - in a typical large town or city centre, I think the public think we have hundreds and hundreds of police officers to police.
'We probably have a handful, and we have to prioritise. So what we will find in a city centre, some officers will be dealing with 999 calls, crimes in action, people being seriously assaulted, that you might only have one or two people in a busy high street at 10pm when hundreds and hundreds of people are coming out onto the streets.
'Now my colleagues will do the best they can to encourage and coerce people to move on, but it's really difficult, and all you need is a hostile group who turns against those officers and the resources for that town centre or that city centre are swallowed up dealing with that one incident. It happens all the time. It happens in every city.'
Meanwhile, neighbours are being encouraged to report those who are breaking rules such as not self-isolating if they have coronavirus.