Covid-19 legislation prosecutions (FOI)

​Request

At a press briefing earlier in the year, given by the Chief Minister, it was said that there have been 14 prosecutions that has given rise to fines of £25,000 and a potential suspended sentence. I would ask based on the above:

A

Which people / organisations have been prosecuted to date and to what extent?

B

Certain hospitality venues were in breach of laws / regulations in the latter part of 2020, please identify them and the levels of prosecution?

The above requests should cover the period 30 November 2020 to 31 March 2021

Response

A and B

The States of Jersey Police record crimes by the date of occurrence.

The table below shows the offence and outcome for offences against Covid-19 legislation heard at the Magistrates court, committed between 30 November 2020 and 31 March 2021.

Further offences did occur during this time but were not prosecuted due to the minor nature of the offence, eg failing to wear a mask. Some offences committed during this period have yet to come to trial. Other offences that occurred before the period requested, may have been prosecuted at court during this time.

The Court Greffe has indicated that a manual trawl of all court cases would be required to provide details of Covid-19 offences prosecuted in this time frame. This would take longer than permitted under the Freedom of Information regulations. Article 16 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 has therefore been applied.

The information requested includes the names and recorded convictions of individuals. Although reported in court at the time, the name of an individual prosecuted is now considered to be their own Special category data, under the Data Protection (Jersey) Law 2018. Information identifying or enabling the identification of the individual is exempt from disclosure. Details of businesses prosecuted may be withheld if they would suffer any damage to their commercial interests and, it was in the public interest not to disclose. Matters surrounding the Royal Yacht Hotel are widely reported in the press so further disclosure here could not be legally exempted at this time.

Court releases Royal Yacht Hotel’s defence submission | Jersey Evening Post  

Articles used

Article 25 - Personal information

(1) Information is absolutely exempt information if it constitutes personal data of which the applicant is the data subject as defined in the Data Protection (Jersey) Law 2005.

(2) Information is absolutely exempt information if –

(a) it constitutes personal data of which the applicant is not the data subject as defined in the Data Protection (Jersey) Law 2018; and

(b) its supply to a member of the public would contravene any of the data protection principles, as defined in that Law.

(3) In determining for the purposes of this Article whether the lawfulness principle in Article 8(1)(a) of the Data Protection (Jersey) Law 2018 would be contravened by the disclosure of information, paragraph 5(1) of Schedule 2 to that Law (legitimate interests) is to be read as if sub-paragraph (b) (which disapplies the provision where the controller is a public authority) were omitted.

Article 16 - A scheduled public authority may refuse to supply information if cost excessive

(1) A scheduled public authority that has been requested to supply information may refuse to supply the information if it estimates that the cost of doing so would exceed an amount determined in the manner prescribed by Regulations.

(2) Despite paragraph (1), a scheduled public authority may still supply the information requested on payment to it of a fee determined by the authority in the manner prescribed by Regulations for the purposes of this Article.

(3) Regulations may provide that, in such circumstances as the Regulations prescribe, if two or more requests for information are made to a scheduled public authority –

(a) by one person; or

(b) by different persons who appear to the scheduled public authority to be acting in concert or in pursuance of a campaign,

the estimated cost of complying with any of the requests is to be taken to be the estimated total cost of complying with all of them.