A mother-of-two who posted photos of empty wards and claimed coronavirus was a hoax has today been banned from visiting all hospitals.
Hannah Dean pretended to be a journalist to gain entry to hospitals before sharing photos on social media of wards which were not on the frontline in the fight against the virus.
Despite being fined £200, the 30-year-old continued to go back into hospitals to take videos and pictures.
She was caught filming patients in a ward on Sunday and now faces arrest and possible criminal prosecution if she ignores an Asbo-style community protection notice.
Covid denier Hannah Dean can only visit a hospital in an emergency, for a booked appointment or if she is a dependent of a patient
Dean filmed patients and staff on wards across the south coast. Police said the photos were not of parts of the hospital involved in treating patients with Covid
Police last night confirmed Dean can only visit a hospital in an emergency, for a booked appointment or if she is a dependent of a patient.
Fines of up to £2,500 could be issued by the courts if she is convicted of breaching the notice and she is also banned from encouraging others to flout national coronavirus lockdown restrictions.
A senior police officer branded her actions ‘unacceptable’ while a local council leader said her comments were a ‘disgrace’.
The latest action comes after Dean was handed a £200 fixed penalty notice for travelling to Queen Alexandra Hospital, Portsmouth, Hampshire, filming there and posting on Facebook it was ‘the quietest I have ever seen it’.
She also filmed similar misleading videos of Southampton General Hospital and repeatedly visited St Richard’s Hospital in Chichester, West Sussex.
Portsmouth Council Leader Gerald Vernon-Jackson said: ‘It’s an irrefutable fact that there’s huge pressure on the hospital.
‘To say [Covid] doesn’t exist, it’s a hoax, is so demeaning to the work those people are putting in, the risks they’re putting themselves under and the loss so many families have felt in this city.
‘It’s a disgrace and how anybody could do that to other people and show so little for their suffering and their hard work, I don’t know.’
Police said Dean, from Fareham in Hampshire, was issued with the notice after ignoring a warning she was issued on Sunday.
She tried to film patients and staff at Queen Alexandra Hospital, where 744 people have died with Covid, at around 4.30pm.
Footage of the hospital’s A&E on the Hannah Dean Facebook account shows security saying: ‘What are you doing here, Hannah?’
A Hampshire and Sussex police investigation has been running since she was issued with the fixed penalty notice.
Some 426 patients were being treated for coronavirus at Queen Alexandra Hospital on January 26, and the intensive care unit is triple its normal size with 47 patients on mechanical ventilation.
A Sussex police spokeswoman said: ‘On Sunday, Sussex police issued a community protection warning to a 30-year-old woman from Fareham which prevents her from attending any hospital apart from when she has a prior appointment, is a dependent or there is a medical emergency; and to not encourage, endorse or incite another person to breach Covid restrictions.
In a bizarre post earlier this month Dean wrote: ‘Free-range humans are seriously selfish!’
‘The woman breached the conditions of the community protection warning on the same day of the order being issued and on Monday she was issued with a community protection notice.’
A Hampshire police spokesman added: ‘The CPN is designed to prevent unreasonable behaviour that is having a negative impact on the local community’s quality of life.’
The mother-of-two’s Facebook account has been heavily criticised by the NHS for posts, in which she urged people to go along to hospitals and film their own videos.
The photos of corridors claimed to be taken at the Queen Alexandra Hospital in Portsmouth, Hampshire, Southampton General hospital, the Princess Royal University hospital near Bromley, Kent and St Richard’s Hospital in Chichester, West Sussex.
Dean, who claims to be a ‘registered journalist’, wrote: ‘QA Queen Alexandra… hospital is the quietest I have ever seen it. I know this is hard to get our heads around, but the government are lying to us.’
Police said the photos were not of parts of the hospital involved in treating patients with Covid.
Portsmouth Police said the post had caused ‘angst in the community’, and Hampshire Police confirmed Dean had received a £200 fine for not having a valid reason for leaving her home.
Dean, who describes herself as a ‘registered journalist’, boasted that she ‘hadn’t heard from police in a week’ before being fined, and said officers had ‘no grounds to detain me’.
Dean has also written anti-vaxx posts, and posted a meme appearing to mock Kate and Gerry McCann on her Facebook.
In one bizarre post Dean wrote: ‘I can’t wait until our government hears my desperate crys and puts full restrictions on my movement, restricting me from certain areas of my cage…. it can’t come soon enough [sic].
‘Free-range humans are seriously selfish! Thank god for this new rushed through vaccine that nobody will be held accountable for in the event of it causing injury or even death! Because the way I see it is, A few deaths caused by vaccines, is a small price to pay to save a few lives. [sic]’