More than 20 people were slapped with fixed penalty notices over the weekend for failing to obey Coronavirus lockdown procedures, Police Scotland has said.
Officers handed out 25 fines to those flouting regulations in a bid to stop people from spreading coronavirus in public places.
READ MORE: Police handed powers to issue on-the-spot fines
New enforcement powers allowing police to hand out penalties to those not complying with social distancing measures were introduced last week.
Rules stipulate there should be no public gatherings of more than two people, except for those from the same household "or in other limited circumstances such as responding to an emergency or work-related purposes that are genuinely essential".
Deputy Chief Constable Malcolm Graham told BBC Radio Scotland’s Good Morning Scotland programme he thought it was “strong evidence of how these extraordinary powers have had an impact in such a short space of time with communities across Scotland”.
Mr Graham said: “We’ve also received a significant number of calls firstly from people asking how do we comply with these regulations and secondly reporting people they felt were breaching them.
“We responded to those calls to make sure we could again explain why it was important, encourage people to comply with them, and in those very small number of occasions use the enforcement powers that we’ve got where that very small minority of people just refuse to comply with what is required."
Mr Graham admitted officers had shut down gatherings over the weekend, including "a number of house parties".
It came after police in Derby were forced to break up a 'massive party' featuring karaoke and attended by more than 30 adults and children on Saturday.
READ MORE: Police express "absolute shock" at "massive party"
Mr Graham added: “We had a number of house parties still going on we were called to attend and if people refuse to break those up then notices could be issued.
“We had groups of people outside and again if people have refused to comply then that was some of the circumstances and in a very small number of cases we issued fixed penalty notices to businesses that were still operating where it was not appropriate that they should continue to given the regulations that are in place.”
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