"A £10k Covid Fine for a Snowball Fight Ruined My Life"

In January 2021, 23 year-old Leeds University student Xen Watts organised a lockdown snowball fight and was hit with a £10,000 fine that ruined his life. In fact, nearly half of the 120,000 Covid fines went to 18-24 year-olds. We owe young people a massive apology. The Telegraph tells Xen’s story.

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 – 48% – of these fines were issued to 18 to 24 year-olds, even though they account for just 8% 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.

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