The gym owners who refused to comply with lockdown have fared very differently in the three years since they refused to shut their doors. Some are still facing fines of almost £100,000. Others have had all charges dropped. Many have gone out of business. But none of them regrets staying open.
Motivated by the loss of members to suicide or illness during lockdown, gym owners told The Epoch Times they felt compelled to “do the right thing” by keeping their facilities open.
Though many gym owners refused to abide by the rules, claiming gyms provide a vital service that improves both physical and mental health, despite intense media and police scrutiny, and COVID-Fixed Penalty Notices (FPNs).
One gym owner has decided to continue to bring his fight to the political arena, while another, a world-famous strongman, is facing huge debts. Another told a chief of police to his face that she would stay open. Their experiences have deepened their conviction that, two years on, they did the right thing by standing up for others.
Gyms in England and Wales were ordered to shut on March 20, 2020, as part of the first national lockdown in response to COVID-19, lasting until July, 2020. Even when they did reopen, they were subject to a number of restrictions, such as capacity limits, social distancing measures, and enhanced cleaning protocols. Gyms were then ordered to shut again as part of the second national lockdown in Nov. 2020.
From December, some sites were allowed to reopen under the tiered system of restrictions, with gyms in Tier 3 (the highest level of restrictions) remaining closed.
On Jan. 4, 2021, at 8 p.m., former Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced the third national lockdown, effectively putting all of England into the highest tier.
British world champion bodybuilder and professional Strongman competitor Eddy Ellwood told The Epoch Times that bailiffs had recently posted a letter to his door about paying a £94,000 court bill after he allowed people to enter Xtreme Fitness in Hartlepool through lockdown.
“I’m not paying it,” the five-time Mr. Universe winner and four-time winner of the England’s Strongest Man title said, adding that “no crime was committed.”
Looking back, the champion bodybuilder said that May 21, 2020 was a “key date.”
“I found out that one of my gym members was found hanging in a tree. He took his own life, he was suffering with PTSD from the army,” he said, adding that when lockdown was implemented, the former soldier’s PTSD therapy was stopped.
His only avenue for therapy was at the gym.
“So he was left in his own mind, while on his own, in his own house and his mental health got the better of him,” he said.
Mr. Ellwood said that another gym member called him up late at 1 am, in the middle of a having a nervous breakdown.
“But I could hear that his family was still around in the background and he was asking me for help,” he said.
“If I can open the gym for an hour for you, I will,” he told the man.
“After these two incidents. I thought this was not right. I don’t know anybody that’s died of COVID-19, yet I’ve had one lad die on me and another one, probably close to suicide,” he said.
As he grew sceptical of the COVID-19 narrative, he opened the gym as a protest, often quoting human rights legislation, something he says authorities consistently ignored.
In May, Mr. Ellwood lost an appeal against four charges relating to breaches of COVID-19 legislation. Since then, the £56,000 in fines and costs by a court have ballooned to £97,000.
“I think they just made a big example for me because they didn’t want me or the people to do the same as what I was doing,” he said.
“And me being the biggest figure in the bodybuilding world, they probably didn’t want to have that advertised,” he said
“They were trying to close me down, shut me up and every avenue they took, and I just rebelled against it,” he added.
Mr. Ellwood believed that the court process was biased against him. The Epoch Times has not been able to independently verify these claims.
“At this moment in time, I’m basically fighting against what they put against me. I haven’t appealed it any further because I could see the corruption from the outset,” he added.
Andreas Michli was handed £67,000 fines for refusing to close Zone Gym in London during all the lockdowns, which were all dropped.
The health and fitness entrepreneur recently announced his candidacy for the 2024 London mayoral elections to tackle net zero policies like ULEZ and Low Traffic Neighbourhoods.
“I stayed open on in all three lockdowns,” he told The Epoch Times, adding that he also heard about members killing themselves during the lockdown. One time, 30 Metropolitan Police officers entered his gym and ordering to close his doors, only to return again the next morning to find he had re-opened.
“The first lockdown I was only threatened with prosecution. They never actually followed through with it. The second lockdown and the third lockdown they followed through with prosecution and it was taken to court,” he said.
“I think during the first lockdown, I was considered the slightly more radical for taking a slightly more radical approach. Not as many people agreed with me at that time within the fitness community,” he said.
However he said that eventually, most of the fitness community started to see “it for what it is.”
He looked back on the time when places like McDonalds were allowed to be open, but gyms were not.
“It’s just insanity, we were going through the supposed worst sort of health issue we’ve had in this century. However, junk food and fast food restaurants are allowed to stay open,” he said.
“Whereas the gym, which is supporting and increasing your immune functions, is not allowed to be open. None of it made sense,” he added.
On his fine, he said that media reporting put it at £77,000, but it was actually a lot more.
“I stopped counting at about £120,000. I was actually just tearing them up and throwing them in the bin,” he said.
He said that authorities were never actually able to follow through and collect because he won “the critical court cases, both for lockdown two for lockdown three.”
“I was prosecuted by the police for lockdown number two and I was prosecuted by Haringey Borough for lockdown number three. In both cases, I won and I was awarded all my awarded costs so they had to pay,” he said.
Mr. Michli said, that despite it being a stressful time, he wasn’t fazed by letters demanding him to pay the fine.
“Most average people, they‘ll look at a piece of paper and there’ll be some red writing ie a fine you must pay your goods will be removed, etc, that that genuinely terrifies people, but for me all I saw was a piece of paper so it had no effect on my emotions,” he added.
Jayne Deakin told The Epoch Times, that she kept her Fitness for Life gym open in Bury, even telling Greater Manchester Police Chief Ian Hopkins she would do so in a live interview on BBC “5 Live” in the second lockdown on Nov. 2020.
She said that she wasn’t being “defiant,” rather it was about the health mental and physical of her customers.
“It was the right thing to do from my heart,” she said.
Ms. Deakin said that she believed “with certainty” that the lockdown killed her friend, a gym member, whose health rapidly deteriorated.
“I used to see her every day,” she said.
“If she'd have been coming to the gym and having the coffee mornings with her friends, she would have told us she weren’t well, and we could have helped her,” she said.
She said that when she opened, police kept coming back and tried to intimidate her, though she admits they were “caught between a rock and a hard place.”
“I’ve never been in trouble with the police. I’ve never done anything. I’ve never been in a police station. I’ve never done anything wrong,” she said.
“My kids joked that they are treating me like a criminal because I opened a spin class,” she said.
She added she had received a wave of threats and insults, even some wishing ill on her children.
“It made me think ‘Have I done the right thing?’ But then that’s teaching my kids to keep their mouth shut,” she said.
“It is really hard to speak out in this day and age for what you believe in because there are so many rules and regulations and it’s all PC, what’s right, and what’s wrong, but I think if you believe in something so strongly, then you should speak out,” she said.
Ultimately Ms. Deakin felt she was one of the “lucky ones,” as the judge listened to her case and threw everything out. She no longer has the gym and is now focused on being a personal trainer.
The Epoch Times spoke to other gym members who had gone through similar experiences but said that they wanted to move on to focus on their members.
COVID-19 Fines
While many COVID-19 fines were overturned, a lawyer explained that once a FPN was paid, there was not much that could be done, and in some cases, not paying it would have resulted in much lower penalties.Public law barrister Francis Hoar told The Epoch Times that in summary, the FPNs were for fixed amounts, including huge fines of £10,000 for organising gatherings of more than 30 people.
“They were not criminal convictions but an opportunity for a person to agree to pay the notice, which would mean that they could not be prosecuted for them,” he said.
He said that while you cannot “challenge” an FPN—as it is an option to pay but not compulsory—anyone not paying them within 28 days after being informed that they could do so had the risk of being prosecuted.
“However: (a) they might not be prosecuted; and (b) if they were prosecuted, they would in many cases have received much lower fines than they would have had to pay under the FPN,” he said.
“Under the statutory regime, once a person agrees to pay an FPN, that is it,” he said.
“There is no mechanism for challenging an FPN if paid as the person paying it would have agreed to do so instead of insisting that the prosecution decide to prosecute or don’t do so,” he added.
“However, it is conceivable that a person might be able to challenge—by judicial review—the decision to offer an FPN in extraordinary circumstances, such as if they lacked the capacity to make that decision at the time. But any such application would be years out of time and very difficult to win,” said Mr. Hoar.
