Party Vibe

sexual assaults at large commercial festivals are sadly much more common than people realise.

Although rape is thankfully the rarest of these offences it does happen, and there are loads of lower level assaults. The anonymity of large crowds allows all kinds of scummy behaviour to thrive unless robust security measures are taken.

At V festival a bloke molesting girls was challenged by a older man, unfortunately the offender simply overpowered and beat up the good samaritan, he was quite badly injured and Essex cops are still looking for the attacker.

I hope the cops do manage to find the attackers, and given that its most likely to be the teenage/young adult kids of middle class festival goers who are reponsible that they are all exposed in the media so their families are shamed, and that the full cost of this investigation is passed back to Latitudes promoters.

If it means they have to increase prices or the festival doesn’t even happen next year so be it, I don’t feel as a Suffolk Council tax payer I should have to bear any extra costs.

@process 391647 wrote:

its not the fault of the festival that some cunt goes and rapes someone tho. or the other 99% of people that aren’t scum. you sound suprisingly like a not in my back yard type there GL!

The festival creates the gathering of people, and with it opportunities for criminality. Over a certain number of people any large public event with gatherings of a younger, male-dominated crowd who might have taken substances what make them prone to impulsive behaviour need be monitored by some kind of security presence, either covert or overt – whether its a festival, a club or even a wider town centre.

Even shit nightclubs like Liquid or Jokers have their licensing fees assessed yearly and they are set to recover at least some of the cost of dealing with the knock on effects such as violence/crime – hence why the licensing costs for full PEL’s go up each year. They are also obliged to comply with whatever security arrangements the Police and Council impose on them. They put up and pay up which is why they are still tolerated despite the problems they cause.

At least it happened there and not at Eastern Haze so the feds can’t argue that dance music based crowds are any worse than anyone else, but when they have to deal with things like this (as well as a history of lower level violence occuring across all summer events in EA) its hardly surprising the events become harder to license.

there has been a rise in criminality associated with Latitude (in comparison to not having this event in the Southwold summer calendar) and this incident proves it is no safer than the other events formerly licensed in the area such as EH. If I lived in Waveney district or wherever it was, make a FOI request to enquire whether it definitely brought in more money than the cost to the public purse, and if not I’d put in a Objection to its PEL!

@Tank Girl 391654 wrote:

Rape is not about sex, it is about power and violence and prehaps these ‘men‘ are beginning to use these events to find vulnerable (isolated) girls / women to prey on – as gang rape must be culturally / socially acceptable within the gang – otherwise – one of the gang would try and stop it or atleast would report it
Gang rape is a common place initiation for young girls (as young as 11) in ‘gang culture’ in lundun, and often with other girls reccomending others girls or ‘selling’ other girls

Exactly. and if that scummy behaviour is finding its way 100+ miles up here in a festival of what is mostly a very middle class upmarket crowd then it needs to be dealt with by any means necessary. This sort of offence is very rare otherwise in that part of Suffolk, as its not a particularly highly populated area! it is actually a bit strange and very worrying it would happen at an event like Latitude, TBH I’d expect it to happen more at a urban music based event, but just shows how any crowd can have these problems..

I hope Suffolk Constabulary and the Major Investigations team can do their best, but they are already stretched with a ongoing rape case in Ipswich and a fatal domestic violence case involving a Suffolk couple (which also involves metpol and foreign forces in Spain :hopeless:

a fuller description of the attacker here, with the victim claiming he had a London accent..

Following an interview with the 19-year-old victim this afternoon, police have released details of a person they would like to trace in connection with the incident at the festival site at Henham Park near Southwold last night.

One of the suspects is thought to be white with dark curly hair, around 5ft 7ins and of medium build. He is possibly in his 20s with a Cockney accent and has been described as “looking like a student”.

The teenager, who is from Norwich, left her tent in the red area of the campsite at around 10pm to find the toilet, but lost her bearings.

She saw a group of young men and approached them, thinking one, described as of muscular build with a shaved head, was someone she knew.

As she got closer, she realised it was not him, but asked the group for directions.

They said they would show her the way and walked for some distance before some of them, including the man with a shaved head, left in another direction.

The rest of the men continued to walk with the young woman but they left the path and went into a darker area with lots of trees.

The woman was then grabbed, held close to a tree and raped by at least one of the men, before the group ran off.

The teenager reported the incident to security staff at the venue who alerted police officers on site.

Officers have launched an appeal to find the group, and have also asked anyone who was approached by a woman asking for directions around this time last night to get in touch.

At the time, the young woman was wearing denim jeggings, a yellow and white checked shirt, a black cardigan and Wellington boots.

Anyone with information about the incident is asked to contact Suffolk Police on 01473 613500.

@Digital-A 391760 wrote:

Something surely needs to be done. I do find it strange that the festivals and tek’s I have been to have not seemed to have this problem, it does seem to be this middle class type of festival.

if these rare incidents are happening I expect there is also a lot more violence such as fighting and robbery which goes unreported and unpunished amongst some younger people who would rather “sort things out by themselves” than go to Old Bill..

there are way less people at free parties and smaller festivals, and those what do attend tend to know one another creating less opportunities for these incidents. its extremely unlikely such an incident would occur in a event with < 1000 people.

however I am aware of serious sexual assaults occuring at some inner city squat parties in London and Bristol and lower level assaults such as groping happening even at the friendly SE England free parties, leading to violence as people take matters into their own hands and groups of people take sides. not everyone on the festival/party scene is right-on, multicultural and against sexism/misogyny, there’s a fair few scum around, and worse still even they stick up for one another or are hard enough to deal with inevitable reprisals from non-trained people….