Police: ‘It wasn’t safe to stop raves’

POLICE say officers did not move in to break up two illegal raves to avoid people getting hurt.

Greater Manchester Police have denied that the force was understaffed – claims made by MPs after 6,000 people gathered at two illegal raves in Oldham and Trafford.

A rave at Carrington on Saturday night was attended by around 2,000 people and ended in three separate stabbings and a rape.

It took place at the same time as a second larger rave at Daisy Nook Country Park, where 4,000 revellers descended and one man died from a suspected drug overdose.

Assistant Chief Constable Chris Sykes said the scale and size of the two incidents ‘came on us really quickly’ and admitted that there had been no warning of a rave taking place in Oldham.

But he defended the decision to carefully monitor the gatherings and said police needed to strike the right balance of proportionality and fairness with our ‘overall coronavirus response.’

He said: “The overriding principle is that we’re trying to keep people safe and we get asked quite a lot ‘why don’t you move in and disperse everybody?’

“The biggest concern we often have is that if we don’t get the proportionate police action correct then other

people can get hurt. So that assessment was about the fact that we had reports of someone injured when we moved in and actually gave first aid.”

Mr Sykes cited a 60 per cent increase in 999 calls to GMP overnight – with 1,516 made between 5pm on Saturday and 4am on Sunday.

He said: “We have the resources. It’s about a proportionate response from police. It’s not about what we allow, it’s about how we respond to things that take place,” he said.

“The events at Oldham – there was some information about a gathering taking place and there was a neighbourhood operation in place to try and gather intelligence and try and understand where it was and be able to respond where we could.

“The location of that changed and the scale of it changed very much from the intelligence that we had.

“Then as it developed we have to try and deal with it in as proportionate a way as we possibly can,” said Mr Sykes.

Police say a 20-year-old man who died from a suspected drug overdose following the gathering in Oldham collapsed on his way home.

It is believed that he was leaving the event with friends when he collapsed.

A 25-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of possession of an offensive weapon.

No more arrests have yet been made.