Northern Ireland's most senior police officer in charge of orchestrating the Covid-19 response has warned that restrictions on movement could stay in place until September.

Assistant Chief Constable Alan Todd said that people should expect further restrictions in the coming weeks, but added that new 'draconian' emergency legislation would not strip away human rights compliant policing.

Since tougher regulations were announced last Monday ACC Todd said that "the vast majority" of the public were compiling with social distancing.

"People were a little slow getting into their stride on the first weekend, but generally they are much now more compliant, we are seeing a few issues, but 90 percent plus are following the stricter regulations", he said.

"We have had reports from different areas of school aged children congregating in parks, but we haven't seen gangs of hundreds gathering.

"It's really noticeable when I'm driving to and from work I see parents out walking with their children, so that control is there and there's a real social awareness among parents that they need to keep control of that".

Mr Todd said while the big supermarkets were all putting in social distancing measures it was harder for smaller stores with fewer staff to enforce what he called the "new normal".

He also hit out at people who continued to abuse retail staff who are trying to manage queues and restrictive measures.

In relation to the closure of off-licences, originally deemed non essential, the senior officer said he understands that the regulation has now been relaxed.

"From a personal point of view, I can understand commercial tension and that people want to support local, I also understand that people might want beer and wine for their house.

"Allowing them to do so locally makes more sense.

"We are concerned about what happens in the summer... in the good weather people like to be outside, our social practice will have to change to the back garden family unit BBQ rather than a trip to the pub".

The emergency Coronavirus Bill, passed through Westminster and the House of Lords this week, strips away many civil liberties and gives unprecedented powers to government for a maximum period of two years.

ACC Todd said while he understood concerns, it would not change how the PSNI police in terms of human rights compliance.

"I've not seen the final legislation or guidance and given the way this is developing and been developed they may well come in with further regulations in future.

Adding that the key objective is to "stop house to house transmission".

"And that's the health requirement, it's a health objective rather than a policing one.

"The regulations come with a 'sunset clause' meaning they will just pass away out of law .

"But I would always remind people, it doesn't change our values, humans rights based policing remains centre of our decision making.

He said in the coming weeks enforcement would be a last resort saying instead officers were trained to "engage, explain, encourage" people to abide by the restrictions.

"While some of the restrictions are quite draconian that doesn't bring about a draconian police response, the intention of this is healthcare, what are the risks and how do we deal with it and that's really how we police anyway", he said.

"Criminals will always try and take advantage where they can, that's a universal rule.

"Where there is a scarceness of commodities criminals will try and exploit that".

However, he added that overall there had been a reduction in general crime with fewer burglaries, less shoplifting as most retail premises are closed and fewer road traffic accidents with less cars on the road.

In other areas such as domestic abuse the incident rate is up, people confined to their homes in a high stress situation has been highlighted by groups such as Women's Aid as a real danger for those living with abuse.

ACC Todd said "domestic abuse is always a priority for us and more so at this time".

And he added: "This is not going to be three week restriction, schools are closed until September and we are thinking in those terms, if you look at countries such as Italy and Spain they are showing no sign coming out of this any time soon."