A farmer in Peak District has appealed for the UK to enter a total lockdown after he was reportedly punched and kicked on Sunday (March 22) by a walker he told to “go home”.
A post circulating widely on Facebook claimed the Derbyshire farmer was spraying gate handles on his farm with disinfectant when the incident happened.
The post, which was shared more than 1,600 times at the time of publication, read: “Shared from a local farmer two villages away: “I am a farmer in Edale I went out at 9:00am to feed my sheep on the side of the footpath, I was spraying the gate handles with disinfectant due to the hundreds of people that went through them yesterday.
“I got a very funny look of a man walking and said to him: ‘There are too many people here will you please just go home!’
I have just had to phone the police as my thanks were to be punched about 15 times then kicked in the ribs as I hit the floor please please please leave us alone. Boris Johnson please put total lockdown in place.
UK residents had been asked to stay inside and use social distancing to limit the spread of the disease.
However, far from staying indoors, several British scenic spots across the UK reported record turnouts at the weekend.
Police investigating
A spokesman for Derbyshire Police confirmed it was investigating the incident but said that no arrests had yet been made.
He said: “We were called at about 9:45am on Sunday following a report of an assault on a farmer who was disinfecting gates due to the number of walkers passing through over the weekend.
The victim was left shaken and bruised but did not suffer any serious, life-threatening or altering injuries.
“The offender was white, aged about 40, with fair hair and glasses. He wore standard walking gear, a hat and a ‘snood’.
“If anyone has information, they should contact us via our website, Facebook or Twitter, and quote crime reference number: 20*157808.”
