A council has been accused of discrimination for hiring a private security firm to enforce coronavirus restrictions at a caravan site after some residents tested positive.
Security guards monitored dozens of Traveller families at the Riverside site in Queensferry, north Wales, between 20 and 22 January, demanding their reasons for entering and leaving, according to Liberty Investigates, an investigative journalism unit of the human rights organisation Liberty.
The security firm was deployed after Public Health Wales recommended the entire caravan site be designated an “extended household” as it had “significant clusters” of Covid-19 and some families were unwilling or unable to self-isolate, Flintshire council said.
A video posted by reality TV star Paddy Doherty, who lives at the site and was treated in hospital with the virus earlier in January, shows a council-hired security guard saying: “We’re trying to stop them from going out … we’re trying to protect them and other people. We don’t want them coming in and out and passing the Covid. They need to realise how severe the Covid is.”
Police were called to a standoff at the site between guards and residents trying to leave at 8am on 22 January. The council then withdrew the firm.
Flintshire council said it had consulted residents and a community spokesman before dispatching the guards, which it called a “welfare/security team”, but confirmed it did not obtain residents’ consent to treat the site as an extended household as it “was not for discussion”. Relevant partner agencies agreed to this decision under devolved legislative powers, it said.
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