Guernsey Press

‘Self-isolating? I’m out drinking all on my own’

A PINT of beer cost a pensioner £5,000 when he went out for a drink while he was supposed to be in isolation.

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(Picture by Sophie Rabey, 28745125)

When caught by police officers, he told them he was isolating because he was drinking alone, the Magistrate’s Court heard.

Henry John McCarthy, of Richlin, Sous les Courtils, Castel, admitted the breach.

He must remain in custody until at least £1,500 of the fine has been paid and the balance has to be paid by the end of the last working day in November.

‘To think that you could isolate in Crabby Jack’s is both fanciful and, quite frankly, pathetic,’ said Judge Graeme McKerrell.

‘This was both blatant and belligerent, in the sense that you did what you wanted to do and not what you were told to do.’

Crown advocate Chris Dunford, prosecuting, said that McCarthy arrived in the island from Poole on 11 September and was given the chance to either isolate for seven days then be tested, or for 14 days. He opted for 14 days.

The day after, police went to the address he had given to check on him. The garage door was open and there was no car inside and there was no answer when they knocked on the door of the house.

McCarthy’s vehicle was found in the car park at Crabby Jack’s at Vazon that afternoon.

Officers found McCarthy sat at a table in the bar area with a partially full pint glass in front of him. He told them he had been there for about an hour.

When told he should be at home isolating, he said he was isolating because he was alone.

‘What’s wrong with you people?’ he said to officers as he was leaving, and said he had just come back from six months’ isolation in Scotland.

On completion of his isolation he reported to the police station and was arrested, but he suggested to officers that the breach had been a minor one.

He told them he had not read the documents properly and he could have opted for the seven-day isolation.

For McCarthy, Advocate Phoebe Cobb said his practice was to spend part of the year living in a friend’s home in Scotland and the other part with family in Guernsey.

He had wrongly believed he was not putting anyone at risk by going for a drink because he was on his own.

He was receiving a Guernsey pension and had no savings, he asked to be given time to pay off any fine. Advocate Cobb explained to the judge that McCarthy used all of his money to travel back and forth to Scotland.