There isn’t a reasonableness limitation on it unless one is specifically written into the legislation. The law is what is says. If it says you can travel to buy food then you can travel to buy food. If it is silent on mode of transport, distance and type of food and contains no reasonableness text then there’s no offence here.
I’m sure the police (and perhaps some elements of the judiciary) wished that the law gave them discretion to punish someone who wasn’t actually committing an offence but who they felt was taking the piss, but thankfully we’re not that sort of society.
For a good example see the one posted on here the other day about the guy who refused to give his name and address. Some idiot magistrates decided that in their view the law contained a requirement to give your name and address even when it didn’t, and fortunately the high court overturned their decision – essentially finding that a magistrate could not add to the law as they saw fit in order to punish a particular individual.
Malibuflyer wrote:
With this reasoning you could easily “disprove” any rule: Would a rule that bans driving/flying under influence save any sensible person from dying or having an accident while driving/flying drunk? Obviously not because “sensible” persons do not drive/fly under influence anyways. And the non sensibles …
There is a very important difference between drunk driving and going out after 6 p.m. (or any other time which is set for a curfew, depends on the country). Drunk driving is always dangerous, there are no circumstances when it’s a safe activity. On the contrary, going out late is by itself no more dangerous than going out at any other time of the day. So imposing a curfew restricts people’s freedoms unnecessarily.
The aim behind a curfew is almost totally to prevent young people forming crowds in the streets, having got a “takeaway” bottle of some alcoholic drink, one of whose effects is to forget about any distancing objectives 
Nobody could claim that a curfew reduces the virus spread but it would be political suicide to actually say the above real reason. Spelling out the real reasons behind the majority of anti CV19 policies would be political suicide. Most “young people” are already really p1ssed off with “old people” controlling their world, especially as they tend to see themselves as immune to CV19. And if you implemented properly targeted policies you would mostly be going after the poorest and least healthy communities.
We don’t have curfews here in the UK because the wx is way too awful for people to hang out in the streets
Graham wrote:
The law is what is says. If it says you can travel to buy food then you can travel to buy food.
If there is no reasonableness test in the legislation, then it will come down to a finding of fact. Did the pilot indeed travel there to purchase food, or was the food simply an attempt at justification for a prohibited journey? That will be a matter for a judge to decide.
@dublinpilot perhaps you misunderstand our legal system. We do not have an inquisitorial system with a judge deciding facts in a criminal case on the balance of probabilities.
It would not, per se, be for a judge to decide, but for the prosecution to attempt to prove beyond reasonable doubt.
To prove beyond reasonable doubt that a journey to buy food, where food was in fact bought and where the person making it says that’s what it was for, is rather a high bar. The expression “oh, come off it!” is quite popular in this country but fortunately it is not a legal argument. It wouldn’t be a difficult one for the defence barrister.
If you went from Penzance to buy a Mars bar in Inverness you could make a strong argument that the real purpose of the journey was not to buy food, because you could buy an exact equivalent much closer to home.
If one travelled a long distance just for a sandwich, that had better be an extraordinary sandwich.
Peter wrote:
The aim behind a curfew is almost totally to prevent young people forming crowds in the streets, having got a “takeaway” bottle of some alcoholic drink, one of whose effects is to forget about any distancing objectives
Meanwhile, at a place in my neighborhood, as CV-19 cases drop rapidly statewide regardless. Photo taken 5 minutes ago.
Most of the old geezers are probably immunized by now The band is good, one of my favorites.
Graham wrote:
It would not, per se, be for a judge to decide, but for the prosecution to attempt to prove beyond reasonable doubt.
And who decides whether it is proved beyond resonable doubt if not the judge? (Unless you have a jury trial.) Anyway, isn’t a basic principle of common law systems that courts can create new law by their decisions in individual cases?
At the crown court – a jury, not the judge [although the judge provides guidance on the law to the jury].
At the county court – three magistrates (lay judges); they are guided in the law by a Justices’ Clerk.
In general, the lower courts don’t set precedents.
