Man visits hairdresser, toy shop, cafe and hospital within isolation period

One of them, Jerseyman Gareth Le Monnier, 37, of Commercial House 6, St Helier, was fined a total of £6,000 after he admitted two breaches.

Judge Graeme McKerrell said the defendant had knowingly and deliberately put his own needs before that of the wider public good.

The fine would have to be paid in full before he would be released from custody.

The cases against two others - Timmy Tang, 59, of La Licorne, 9, St John Street, St Peter Port, and Terence Jones, 56, of Top Flat, 8, Allez Street, St Port - was adjourned for one week to give them time to take legal advice. The court was told how Mr Tang had arrived travelled from Hong Kong and arrived in Guernsey via Southampton.

No pleas were entered. They were bailed with conditions not to leave or attempt to leave the island and made to surrender all photographic ID.

Prosecuting Officer Sarah Watson told the court that Le Monnier had arrived in Guernsey aboard the Channel Chieftan on Friday 3 July. A customs officer spoke to him at the time and told him that he was bound under the Emergency Powers Law to self isolate until one minute past midnight on Friday 17 July.

On 16 July, when customs officers went to the address he had given in the Grand Bouet, nobody answered the door and he could not be contacted by phone.

One of the officers called the defendant's wife who said her husband might be asleep upstairs. Unbeknown to the officer, the defendant and his wife were with a police officer colleague at another location at the time. Before the officers had left the Bouet address, the couple arrived back there in a car with the defendant hiding low on the seat.

The woman got out of the car and said she would go upstairs to try and wake her husband, who was seen getting out of the same vehicle by an officer who had followed it on foot.

Enquiries established that on 15 July the defendant had been to Toni & Guy hairdressers, to Creasey's Toy Shop, to Waitrose Cafe, and to a building that comes under the States of Guernsey's property portfolio. The following day he went to the latter building and The Princess Elizabeth Hospital.

Advocate Sam Maindonald gave a letter to the court, the contents of which she said, were not appropriate for reading in open court.

Judge Graeme McKerrell said it had been a knowing and deliberate breach.

'Working out when a period of 14 days expires is not rocket science,' he said.

The defendant had put his own needs before the wider public good and it was the interest of the wider public good which had to prevail.

There had to be significant penalties in order to deter others who might consider doing the same.

The defendant might have been asymptomatic but that did not mean that he could not be carrying the disease and passing it on to other people.

Fines of £3,000 were imposed for each offence.