Total fines revealed Victorian lockdown eases
Melbourne’s tough lockdown curfew may have been lifted, but not before 2800 people were fined for breaching the rules.
At $1652 each, police have managed to hand out infringements that add up to a whopping $4.6 million.
Anyone who was caught out after 8 or 9 pm and before 5 am throughout the eight-week curfew was handed a fine.
One of the last of at least 2801 Melbournians caught breaking the curfew was a man who was intercepted in the early hours of Saturday morning on the Mornington Peninsula.
He claimed he was out looking for his phone which he had dropped earlier.
As the legality of the strict measures is being challenged in the state’s Supreme Court, Daniel Andrew says that the curfew played a vital role in limiting movement and driving down COVID-19 numbers.
“This strategy only works if we limit movement (and) if we want our police to be spending all their time having to move people on from Maccas car parks, where there are pop-up social gatherings that are not lawful – I’m going to have police wasting their time doing that,” Mr Andrews said on September 11.
“It is working. And if you don’t limit movement, you won’t limit the number of cases.”
Victoria Police Deputy Commissioner Rick Nugent also said last week that the curfew was reducing movement across the city and making criminals easier to identify.
One man was caught riding his bike in Dandenong, his explanation for police being that he had “fallen asleep” at a mate’s house.
Another pair received an infringement notice after they were caught in a ride share car at 4 am in Melton.
They claimed to be on their way to visit family.
Another man told police he had driven almost 50km from Dandenong to Moonee Ponds during curfew hours to buy a coffee.
Police said that many of the people who were caught out in public during curfew hours had left home to buy food and cigarettes from convenience stores.