Police have arrested more than 40 people over the past fortnight for breaches of Covid regulations.

Chief Constable Gary Roberts said there was a ’tiny, tiny minority’ of people who didn’t think the law applied to them.

He told a press briefing: ’Ninety nine per cent of the people of the Isle of Man are doing what they have to do, because they know they are protecting the health service and they are keeping each other safe and well.’

But he said more than 40 people had been arrested over the last two weeks for flouting the rules and putting others at risk.

He said: ’We are not talking about people who have gone to the Co-op a couple of times a day or driven up to the Point of Ayre for a cup of tea.

’We are talking about people, for example, who are infected and who have deliberately gone out into the community and met innocent people and potentially infected them. We are talking about people who have spat in the faces of police officers.

’We are talking about people who still offend after one, two, three or even four warnings about breaching the regulations.’

Mr Roberts said domestic abuse calls over the last fortnight have increased by 145%. ’That sounds an astronomical number but what it means is a year ago we’d go to one or two domestic incidents a day but now we are going to three or four or sometimes even five.’

Calls to the police from people with mental health problems have gone up 40%. ’That’s a significant increase at a time when the public quite rightly are feeling anxious,’ Mr Roberts said.

On the plus side, collisions on the roads are down 80% and crime is down 30%. ’We are dealing with a new environment,’ Mr Roberts said.

He said police were receiving 40 to 50 calls a day about potential breaches of the Covid regulations although that number has declined slightly in the last couple of days.

Enforcement remains the last resort, he insisted.

From today the constabulary’s approach will change a little to focus on four areas - gatherings, infected and potentially infected people, the roads as there is every chance there will be more traffic with the lifting of restrictions, and crime.

In the last week police arrested four people for drug trafficking offences.

The Chief Constable rejected the idea that police relish the extra emergency powers they have.

He said: ’We really dislike the powers we’ve got, they are necessary because we are in a health emergency and we will use them sparingly and well. The second this emergency is over those powers are gone and we will be glad about that.’