Priti Patel fronted the daily Covid-19 update from the government yesterday afternoon and spoke at some length about criminality emerging from the current Covid-19 pandemic. Nobody is naïve enough to imagine crime would just go away but it did make us like many wonder.
Scanning Google’s news yesterday evening one headline jumped out amongst the myriad of Covid-19 related news items, and was a sorry example of what Patel was alluding to.
The headline was from the Daily Mail and detailed how a 30 year old man has been charged with fraud after allegedly spending six free nights at a hotel claiming to be an NHS worker.
To gain perspective on many things, I often think of a line from To Kill a Mockingbird, where Atticus Finch explains to his daughter Scout: “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view… until you climb in his skin and walk around in it.”
In this instance you would have to step into the skin of one Ben Quince. Quince apparently checked into the Casa Hotel in Chesterfield, at the end of March. He told staff at the hotel that he worked in the A&E department at Chesterfield Royal Hospital.
Casa Hotel is among the many up and down the UK that are providing free accommodation for NHS front line workers during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Quince, of Burley Lane, Quarndon, in Derbyshire was charged with fraud by false representation. He appeared at Southern Derbyshire Magistrates’ Court on Monday and was bailed to appear again at a later date, police said.
I don’t want to even attempt getting into this man’s skin, when there is so little resource available to truly reward people working in the NHS currently, stealing from it is worse than killing a mockingbird.
President George W. Bush awards the Presidential Medal of Freedom to author of To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee during a ceremony Monday, Nov. 5, 2007, in the East Room. “To Kill a Mockingbird has influenced the character of our country for the better. It’s been a gift to the entire world. As a model of good writing and humane sensibility, this book will be read and studied forever,” said the President about Harper Lee’s work. White House photo by Eric Draper