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Home / Travel

Coronavirus: British tourists in Spain flout lockdown, taunt police

NZ Herald
17 Mar, 2020 08:44 PM3 mins to read

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British tourists are behaving badly in Spain.

British tourists are behaving badly in Spain.

British tourists in Spain have been filmed drinking beer and taunting police attempting to enforce a lockdown as the number of cases in the country rises to over 11,000, making it the worst hit European nation after Italy.

The country's 47 million people are under a partial lockdown, the borders are closed to foreigners and all private hospitals have been nationalised to help treat the sick.

But the scale of the crisis has not deterred many British tourists from trying to head outside, beer in hand, and get a bit of sun.

Shocking video has emerged showing a group of around 50 people taunting police trying to get them to go back inside a block of apartments.

The clip shows the Brits chanting "We've all got the virus, na na na na" at the Spanish officers.

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READ MORE:
• Coronavirus: Spain reports 2000 new Covid-19 cases in 24 hours
• Coronavirus in Europe: Spain's 15-day lockdown, France shuts cafes, Italy virus cases jump
• Europe's youngest coronavirus death: Man aged 21 dies
• Coronavirus: Spain to declare state of emergency

The police eventually herded the group back indoors.

Spaniards slammed the tourists in comments on the video, writing "get them back to the UK" and "what unconsciousness, irresponsibility and stupidity".

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An English user commented that the footage was "so embarrassing".

"Please don't judge us all from this. I'm going to hide now and pretend I'm not English," they wrote.

⭕La policía despejando de guiris ingleses, ya cocidos las terrazas de Benidorm ⤵️⤵️ pic.twitter.com/R2U9TkIX7A

— Ramón Rouco (@rouco64) March 14, 2020

The clash wasn't the only encounter between authorities and boozy British holidaymakers, as police tried to sweep the tourists out of the pubs and off the streets.

Speaking to Russia Today, one man said that he wasn't concerned by the threat of the virus.

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Holding a can of beer, the man told the reporter: "It's just a flu that you need to get over - have a beer, happy days, ciao guys."

Many British tourists are seemingly unconcerned by the crisis. Photo / RT
Many British tourists are seemingly unconcerned by the crisis. Photo / RT

Others pushed shopping trolleys full of alcohol down the street and a British woman had to be hauled out of a swimming pool in Tenerife and dragged off in handcuffs after ignoring police commands to leave the water.

The Sun reported that she had refused to leave despite staff repeatedly instructing her to.

Eventually a police officer had to strip to his underwear and jump in the closed pool to forcibly remove her.

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