More than 100 coronavirus fines issued in Hertfordshire have gone unpaid, new figures show.

According to data obtained by the PA news agency under freedom of information legislation, Hertfordshire Constabulary saw 50 per cent of penalties ignored within 28 days between March 27 and September 21.

The county’s police force issued 273 fixed penalty notices in the period, of which 136 were not paid.

It comes as police forces were told to resume handing out £10,000 so-called super-fines less than a week after a decision to suspend them.

It was previously disclosed that about half of fines nationally went unpaid in the 28-day period, although chairman of the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) Martin Hewitt said this proportion is similar to other fixed-penalty notices.

The total number of fines issued in England and Wales between March 27 and September 21 was 18,912.

People who receive a coronavirus fine can appeal in the first instance to the police force that handed out the penalty, to try to get it withdrawn.

In Hertfordshire, a total of 31 per cent (85) penalty notices were rescinded by the force after being issued during the period.

Hertfordshire Constabulary Chief Superintendent Matt Nicholls said in a COVID-19 breifing that the “principle reason” for this is due to the evidence not being written “in a way that convinces the court of the evidential standard”.

“Particularly though with these fixed penalty notices, they want to see that police officers have worked through the explain, engage, encourage, procedure before moving to that fixed penalty notice, and if it hasn’t been clear in the write-up of that ticket, it will probably be rescinded,” he said.

“Fairly early on, we recognised also there was a procedure where officers completed them, it went straight through to our the national criminal records office without going through a supervisory oversight.

“That has been changed in order to ensure that we have the evidential basis for it to go through to issue the fine correctly. So we learnt on that journey, and it wasn’t just Hertfordshire.”

A spokesman for the NPCC said: “We have enforced the law as set by the Government and Parliament. It is only right that fines are then processed in accordance with the law and we therefore encourage people not intending to contest a fine to pay it.

“If any individuals are concerned about why they have received a fine, they can raise it with the force which issued the FPN within the 28-day payment period.

“Officers will have recorded their justifications for issuing an FPN, along with providing evidence to support any breaches of the regulations.

“Once a fine is contested or unpaid the case will proceed to court. Police forces review all of these cases to further ensure only those cases that meet the evidential and public interest test are heard in court.”