One Year for Bribery or Extortion Over Face Masks

One year in prison for bribing an officer to give you a break for not wearing your mask is also the same jail time officers will receive should they coerce you into paying them if you’re found without the face covering.  That part of the latest Statutory Instrument comes on the heels of an incident over the weekend in which a policeman who was on duty at a checkpoint near Tower Hill reportedly extorted an American national for not wearing a face mask.  Likewise, it has come to the attention of the Ministry of National Security that civilians are also constantly bribing officers to look the other way when they are caught violating the existing regulations.

Michael Peyrefitte

Michael Peyrefitte, Attorney General

“We realize that we had an incident where a police officer allegedly tried to extort some money from a person so that that person could not be charged for not wearing a face mask.  And then we found that a lot of people are approaching police officers with bribes to not charge them.  So what we did, what we put in the law, we put a new Section 34A that says that any national security officer, whether police, B.D.F. or coastguard.  If they try to extort or they try to accept a bribe from anybody or if anybody tries to bribe any of them as it relates to a state of emergency offense, then you’ll be liable under the state of emergency to summary conviction and to imprisonment of up to one year.  So those were the major changes from the new amendments.  Two changes really, but very, very significant.”