UK citizens have been banned from having sex with anyone outside of
their own household under new coronavirus lockdown legislation rolled
out by the Government.
The UK government on Monday June 1, introduced new measures that ban
people from socialising indoors with anyone not already in their
household.
The new regulation reads: ‘No person may participate in a gathering
which takes place in a public or private place indoors, and consists of
two or more persons.’
Previously, anyone who goes inside another person’s home would be
breaching the lockdown rules but now both persons could be prosecuted
under the new amendment to the The Health Protection (Coronavirus,
Restrictions) Regulations 2020 bill, that was tabled before Parliament
on Monday.
According to the new rules, only those with ‘reasonable excuses’ will
be allowed to meet privately indoors, which does not include meeting up
to have sex.
Reasonable excuses include jogging or exercising for elite athletes,
movement of vulnerable people and key or essential workers.
Other people that can give reasonable excuses include people that
meet in a private space for childcare, separated parents who live in
different households seeing their children, people providing emergency
assistance and those attending a funeral.
Police forces in the UK have been told to disperse any large groups
and use fines and arrests ‘where appropriate’ as a last resort – but
they can only ‘direct’ someone to go home and have ‘no powers’ to remove
someone by force, the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) and
College of Policing have said in a joint paper.
Their advice to officers also makes clear that the new coronavirus
guidelines /laws ‘provide no power of entry.’ Downing Street has also
been clear that police do not have the power to enter gardens to check
party numbers.
The new regulations comes after a study by researchers at the
universities of Anglia Ruskin and Ulster, showed six in 10 Britons have
gone without having sexual activity during lockdown.