Elderly woman with dementia is fined £150 for breaking French coronavirus rules after putting the wrong date on paperwork allowing her to leave home
- The woman, 73, was stopped in Luxeuil, eastern France on way to supermarket
- Her daughter appealed against €135 fine imposed during a police check in April
- It has now been increased to €166 because she did not pay it at the time
- Town’s mayor then advised the police to withdraw the fine but a court refused
An elderly woman with dementia has been fined £150 for breaking French coronavirus rules after putting the wrong date on paperwork allowing her to leave her home.
A court ruled she must pay despite living with the syndrome after her daughter appealed against the original €135 fine imposed during a police check in April. It has now been increased to €166 because she did not pay it at the time.
The woman, 73, was stopped in Luxeuil, eastern France as she tried to go to the supermarket around half a mile from her house.
When police stopped her they did not record that she was speaking incoherently, reports France Bleu.
An elderly woman with dementia has been fined £150 for breaking French coronavirus rules after putting the wrong date on paperwork allowing her to leave her home. A man in Paris has his paperwork checked in April this year during the country’s first lockdown
In France during the first coronavirus lockdown, a form had to be filled in whenever a person wanted to leave home.
After the pensioner’s daughter heard about the fine she got in contact with the local mayor to tell him that her mother had been diagnosed with Alzheimer five years ago.
She has been monitored by doctors ever since to help manage the condition.
The mayor then advised the police to withdraw the fine but they refused. A prosecutor also asked for the fine to be waived but the court near Vesoul went ahead anyway.
A police officer confronts a woman carrying her shopping in the streets of Paris on the first day of the country’s second national lockdown in October
The fine dates back to France’s first lockdown, in April.
Now France is in a second lockdown until December 15, imposed because cases surged in the autumn after a summer relaxation of the rules.
People are only allowed to leave home if they are armed with a self-signed certificate stating their urgent business – food shopping, taking the kids to school, going to work if this cannot be done from home, going to the hospital or a pharmacy.
Shops and hairdressers are open, but are limiting customer numbers and people can go out to exercise locally.
French BFM TV reported on Monday that Health Minister Olivier Veran has told members of parliament that it is unlikely that the number of daily new coronavirus cases will fall to 5,000 by December 15.
French police officers patrol in front of the Notre-Dame-de-Paris Cathedral in Paris, on October 30
French President Emmanuel Macron has said that threshold is one of the conditions for ending a nationwide lockdown on that date.
Another condition was for the number of people in intensive care to fall below 3,000.
On Sunday, France registered 11,022 new cases, down from a high of over 86,000 per day a month ago. The number of people in ICUs fell by 10 to 3,220 on Sunday. The French death toll in the pandemic is now 55,155.
On December 15 lockdown is to be replaced by a nationwide curfew from 9pm to 7am.
Restaurants and other hospitality venues will not reopen until at least January 20.