The Act – Overview Breach of orders and offences Section 66 Absconding from quarantine
134.This section makes provision where someone subject to a quarantine order breaches that order by absconding, either while being removed to the place of detention or from that place. An absconder can be taken into custody and detained.
135.Subsection (2) provides that the absconder may be taken into custody by a constable, an officer of the health board, or an officer of a local authority. The quarantined person may be detained in a hospital or any other place up to the period specified in the original order. Any period during which the person was in breach of the order is to be left out of account in calculating that period.
136.Subsections (6) and (7) provide that a person who may take a quarantined person into custody or who may detain that person may enter any premises at any time in which the quarantined person is present and use reasonable force in order to gain entry. A person taken into custody under this section and who absconds again may be taken into custody again and detained under this section.
137.The detention of a quarantined person under this section does not preclude a health board from applying to extend the quarantine order and, where such extension is granted, the quarantined person may be removed to the place in which the person is to be quarantined.