LONDON (AP) – London police said on Friday they broke up a wedding attended by 150 people, despite a nationwide closure preventing families from mixing.
The site was a school whose principal died of coronavirus last year.
Metropolitan Police force said officers found a large number of people packed at the north London school on Thursday night with windows closed. The force said that “after the investigations it was established that the group had gathered at the site to have a wedding.”
The force initially said 400 people were at the wedding, but later revised the number to 150.
Weddings are only allowed in “exceptional circumstances” (such as a couple being dangerously ill) and with a maximum of six people in attendance.
Police said the organizer could face a fine of £ 10,000 ($ 13,600). Many guests fled when police arrived, but five people who attended received fines of £ 200.
The Yesodey Hatorah Senior Girls’ School, a state-funded Orthodox Jewish school, said in a statement that it was “absolutely horrified by last night’s event and condemned it in the strongest possible terms.”
The school said its hall had been rented to an outside organization and “we didn’t know the wedding was being held.”
The chief rabbi of the United Kingdom, Ephraim Mirvis, condemned the event that broke the rules.
He tweeted, “At a time when we are all making such great sacrifices, this is a blatant abrogation of the responsibility to protect life and this illegal behavior is boring for the vast majority of the Jewish community.”
The school’s principal, Rabbi Avrahom Pinter, died in April after contracting the coronavirus.
Britain’s pubs, restaurants and entertainment venues are closed and people have to stay largely at home, as part of restrictions to curb a further rise in the virus. The UK has recorded more than 95,000 deaths from COVID-19, the highest number in Europe.
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