‘I received a £10k Covid fine – one jokey snowball fight has ruined my life'

Telegraph

12-03-2025

When Xen Watts organised a snowball fight on Facebook he never imagined it would turn his life upside down.
It was January 2021 – the start of the third and longest Covid lockdown in England, and the 23-year-old Leeds University student created the event out of boredom. It was meant to be an ironic joke, poking fun at how restricted everyone's lives had become.
Unfortunately for him, more than 100 people gathered on a snow-dusted Woodhouse Moor the next day.
Later that week, the police knocked on Watts's door and summoned him to the station for an interview. As evidence, they presented a screenshot showing that he had created the event.
'The officer wrote down the number '3,600' on a piece of paper and slid it across the table,' Watts says.
'He asked me 'Do you know what this means, Mr Watts?', and I said I don't know. He said, 'This is the number of people who have died from Covid-19 since your snowball fight, how do you feel about that?'
Watts was issued with the maximum possible fine of £10,000 – and the threat of a criminal record if he didn't pay.
'I didn't take it seriously. I didn't think I'd done anything wrong, so I didn't pay. I thought that justice would prevail.'
The fixed penalty notice (FPN) saddled Watts with 'crippling debt' but also the stigma of being a Covid rule-breaker. 'Certain friendship groups stopped speaking to me. I stopped going to lectures. My mental health was in a dire state.
'I'm not going to whine. I live in a first-world country with many privileges, but this fine derailed my life and made me hate the system.'
Watts is one of the nearly 120,000 people to be issued FPNs for breaking lockdown rules in England and Wales during the pandemic.
Almost half – 48pc – of these fines were issued to 18- to 24-year-olds, even though they account for just 8pc of the population.
Between March 2020 and July 2021, there were three national lockdowns when attending gatherings, leaving home or failing to wear a face mask could all result in a fine or prosecution.
Non-payment of an FPN is not in itself a criminal offence but if it remains unpaid, the person receiving it may be summoned to court for prosecution for the original offence. A defendant can then receive a criminal record if convicted.
The Covid rules led to over 29,000 people being handed criminal convictions because they either contested or did not pay the fine.
Among those to receive a criminal record were an 18-year-old student who attended a party during a lockdown, a 35-year-old man who hosted family members on New Year's Eve and a 72-year-old woman who travelled back from Kenya without evidence of a negative Covid test.
Criminal convictions can prevent people from working as teachers, social workers or police officers, as the police can pass these details to prospective employers if they are deemed 'relevant' for criminal background checks.
Convictions must also be declared when applying for visas to visit countries like the US and Canada, both of which reserve the right to permanently ban anyone who fails to reveal one.
Ministry of Justice data shows that the 29,000 criminal fines issued by magistrates totalled £26m – more than for any other type of crime since the start of the pandemic, apart from motoring offences and TV licence evasion. A further £8.2m was paid by people who were handed FPNs.
Watts refused to pay the fine for two and a half years despite repeated letters and threats of prosecution, in part out of principle, and because he hoped it might get rescinded. He eventually decided to settle in late 2023 after his debt was transferred to a debt collection agency and bailiffs started making regular visits to his home. As a result, he has avoided getting a criminal record.
He chose to pay the fine in instalments, scraping the money together from bank loans and his work as a DJ and promoter. 'It was so stressful, so horrible,' he says. 'Financially, it's been crippling.'
Covid fines 'sloppily drafted'
Nearly five years on from the first national lockdown, there are still 114 outstanding 'coronavirus offence' cases making their way through the courts, according to the Government.
In June, Robert Buckland, the former Tory justice secretary, called for an amnesty for those handed criminal convictions for breaking Covid rules.
Lord Sumption, a former Supreme Court judge, said that criminalisation for rule breaches during the pandemic was 'ridiculous' and a 'miscarriage of justice'. Sir Keir Starmer has failed to back calls for an amnesty.
Penelope Gibbs, director of the charity Transform Justice, believes the legislation granting police powers to issue Covid fines was 'sloppily drafted, rushed, and poorly scrutinised'.
She adds: 'Some of the fines are incredibly high and difficult to pay. These penalties were disproportionate and a lot of people incurred them without being fully aware of the law.
'If you have vague legal wording and rules that keep changing suddenly, people interpret it in different ways – including the police.'
Official data shows that some police forces were more inclined to issue fines than others. Almost half of the court-issued fines – worth £12.4m – were raised by just five forces: the Metropolitan Police, Greater Manchester, Merseyside, Lancashire and South Wales.
Behaviour could have been changed without a heavy-handed legal approach, according to Ms Gibbs. 'It was a misuse of the law.'
The apparently arbitrary nature of the fines is another injustice that supporters of an amnesty point to. Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak, who were then prime minister and chancellor, each received a £50 fixed penalty notice from the Metropolitan Police for attending a 'gathering' in Downing Street in June 2020. Both paid the fine and apologised, but rejected calls to resign.
Four years after Watts was issued his fine, it's this hypocrisy that rankles most. 'The police took five minutes to decide to issue me with a £10,000 fine. And then Boris gets £50 and a slap on the wrist.
'It makes me feel a complete and utter loss of trust and hope in the system that I used to hold in high regard,' he says.
'I regret that I made that Facebook event, but I'm not ashamed of what I did.'