Party Vibe

@Tocooltom 459499 wrote:

Managed to get the rig out of the venue secretly, but the van got pulled by undercover old bill on the A11. Still got all the amps and decks and cables, just the speakers got taken. No section 63 served, no documents for confiscation of the rig, cops cudnt even tell my mate why he was being arrested until he got to the station but im sure all charges will be dropped due to lack of evidence as usual.

Feds don’t need to use CJA to seize items in this manner, any constable (uniformed or plain clothes) can seize property to look for evidence under a 1984 law called the Police and Criminal Evidence Act. CJA is just one of the laws used against unlicensed events, which happened long before the CJA was passed. The reason they took the speakers and not anything else is these are often of distinctive designs and of a size where they can only be used at a music event in a large space, whereas it is not uncommon for people to legitimately have decks, mixers and other items in their bedroom and near impossible without using CSI style tactics and surveillance to prove that these items were definitely used for or at the unlicensed events.

Often they do quietly drop the charges and return the kit with a warning “not to do it again” (and often give people a fair few chances) but another reason they do this is also because in this area if they do not, landowners complain to the Police they are not doing enough to discourage ravers and then much worse can happen including vigilanté action on both sides (as was the case a few years ago). I remember when the zero tolerance started and cops got berated in the EDP newspaper and elsewhere
by folk saying ” you should have done this 20 years ago” (in reality they couldn’t due to some techical limitations of radio systems used by the Police in those days).

BTW East Anglia is the only area in the UK where I have caught private citizens trying to pose as ravers to get info. They weren’t middle aged folk either but not much older than Tom but with links to private landowners but weren’t working for any official agency. Even the landowners discouraged them in the end from taking matters into their own hands and told them to leave this sort of thing to the Police.

Incidentally on Norfolk cops press release there is a mention of a rave in a similar area being “dealt with”. Their version of the story / penalties given out is slightly different than what is being said here, I know who I will believe more and its certainly not the feds, although I think its prudent to let their spin doctors have their platform simply to keep the locals happy.

some years ago in Southern England, we had a kids TV show called Cloppa Castle. It was very surreal and probably not PC by todays standards, there was a group of English/European medieval types and another lot with distinctly Middle Eastern/Asian appearances, who all lived around a castle set in what is now Kidderminster /Dudley or surrounding areas. The folk in the castle had discovered a oil well and the others (the Middle Eastern types) were having a war over the oil 😉

Except no one actually really got badly hurt in all the fighting, there seemed to be a endless supply of the oil anyway, and at 15:00 (3pm) every day both sides would stop their war and have tea together :laugh_at:. It was never explained why they didn’t just share the oil co-operatively, though in reality thats what they were doing but just had the war to keep everyone busy and to make everyone feel that their property rights were being defended.

Much of what goes on in East Anglian forests (not just with raves but travellers etc) is (or should be) a lot like this..

If you go down to Cloppa Castle
Be prepared to stay a while
The Byegones and the Hasbeenes
Always doing battle for the oil
What they found beneath the ground
Has made the Byegones free
And every day at three o’clock
They all sit down to tea
Living in harmony
At Cloppa Castle
With the friendly enemy
At Cloppa Castle
Living in harmony
At Cloppa Castle
At Cloppa Castle