Forums › Rave › Party Reports › Police defend handling of illegal rave
30 August 2004 16:50
The scene of the rave at Weybourne.
Norfolk police defended the way they dealt with an illegal rave on private land which attracted hundreds of young partygoers.
And a senior officer said lessons learnt from the latest in a string of similar outdoor events could feed into future policy for dealing with such incidents.
The rave, held on the idyllic North Norfolk clifftop near Weybourne, led to damage to gates, fields and the cliff edge. From the site, adjacent to the Norfolk Coast Path, it was possible to see ex-Prime Minister John Major’s house, approximately a mile away on the hillside.
The irate farmer, whose land was crossed by hundreds of vehicles over the weekend, said the incident had already cost him money in repairs and possible loss of value of his crops, because he has been unable to harvest.
Similar parties have been held in the last few weeks across Norfolk, including at Brancaster beach, Thetford Forest and Sandringham. All have attracted police attention and local anger.
The police have been criticised by landowners for the way they have responded to the events, but Supt Vaughan Mullender said officers had to respond in a “proportionate and pragmatic way”.
He said it was important to ensure public safety and to minimise disruption and damage.
“We see what lessons can be learned and we learn from each of these incidents,” said Supt Mullender.
“We have to take that proportionate approach when dealing with these things and look at all the surrounding circumstances.”
Supt Mullender also said it was conceivable that the lessons learnt could eventually lead to a change of policy.
He said officers reacted “very positively” to the Weybourne rave, which police officially described as a ‘party’.
“We are happy with the way it was dealt with,” said Supt Mullender.
Jim Wilson, chairman of Norfolk Police Authority, said the issue was an operational matter and it was not in the remit of the authority to comment.
But he added that such incidents were generally cases of management.
“Wherever possible the police manage these things in a way to try and ameliorate the disturbance.”
Mr Wilson said breaking up a party once scores or hundreds of people were there would take an “awful lot” of manpower.
Up to 800 people were understood to have been at the Weybourne rave at its height. The event started on Saturday morning and was continuing Monday night.
John Perry-Warnes, county council representative on the police authority, said he was very sorry that the landowner had experienced “considerable inconvenience right in the middle of harvesting and cultivating”.
He added that the rave had been “thoroughly well planned” and that the organisers had “in a way outmanoeuvred us”.
Farmer Clive Hay-Smith, who farms 1200 acres, felt better policing of the rave in its very early stages could have prevented it going ahead.
“I do think they should have been jumped on earlier. The first group was fairly small, it wasn’t as if all these people turned up at once.”
Mr Hay-Smith said some of the behaviour he had seen defied belief, explaining that he had seen a father in a Mercedes dropping his daughter off at the party and one of the ravers asking him what he was doing there – even though he was on his own land.
He was also angry that he had been unable to harvest a neighbouring field of barley over the weekend, which could now lose quality and therefore value in the coming days.
“We were lined up to cut it on Saturday, but for health and safety reasons we decided we just could not.
“I was worried there could have been someone out of it and asleep in the field and they wouldn’t hear the machinery coming.
“To be honest the whole thing is a mess, I can’t tell you how angry I have been – and all in a year when the harvest has been hard enough as it is.”
However Mr Hay-Smith was determined to cut the remainder of his crop, about 100 acres, in the coming days.
Over the weekend, bemused walkers were greeted with a rag-tag gathering of tents, cars, vans, music systems, a stack of giant speakers and empty cans strewn on the ground as they made their way along the well-trodden coast path.
Generally pleasant and polite, those attending the rave were mainly young, aged either in their teens or 20s.
There was a certain amount of tidying being done on Monday afternoon, but there were still plenty of cans, bottles, cigarette butts and other rubbish lying across a large area.
The group who appeared to have organised the rave declined to comment, but one raver, who identified himself simply as Will, said: “We’re just having fun, there’s no houses that close by. What’s the problem?
There seems to be a large amount of press coverage of parties all across the country just lately.
It’s as if they were trying to get the laws changed or something. :
AFAIK there was a similar amount of reports this time last year (and in previous years)
raves have all the elements the gutter press reporters (particularly local press) want to make a story – conflicts between generations and communities, recreational drugs issues, traffic congestion, crime, old bill etc
remember also most of the reporters are young ambitious types themselves trying to move into the nationals, or perhaps broadcast media. Its a story on a plate.
To be fair even the commercial festivals get as much stick in many papers – even though they were licensed the local rags picked up the crime aspect (although Reading was too wet and muddy for much crime to happen) and the disruption to local businesses and population.
sadly we have to realise there are millions of middle englanders who would far rather see that none of these events happened, legal or not, and these are by and large the same people the local rags are aimed at.
We do after all have our own “media” such as the execrable commercial dance music/lad-mag type rags (MixMag et al) much some of which actually glamourises the drugs/crime/excess element of the rave scene – and also sites like this to put our view across.
I’m sure if Green Derek was here he would find similar examples of lurid press articles about the 1970s era hippies festivals!
0
Voices
1
Reply
Tags
This topic has no tags
Forums › Rave › Party Reports › Police defend handling of illegal rave
