Railway arch ravers fined £15k as illegal gatherings test police
POLICE have issued £15,000 in fines after they broke up an illegal rave in a packed railway arch.
About 300 people were caught breaking coronavirus restrictions at the rave in Hackney, London, at 1.30am yesterday. The lockdown partygoers tried to evade police by scaling fences and forcing open gates with the doors padlocked from the inside.
Officers gave 78 people £200 fixed penalty notices for breaching Covid rules by attending the event.
Chief Supt Roy Smith, who attended the illegal incident, explained how officers were forced to deal with the illegal activity. He said: “This was a serious and blatant breach of the public health regulations and the law in relation to unlicensed music events.
“Officers were forced, yet again, to put their own health at risk to deal with a large group of incredibly selfish people who were tightly packed together in a confined space – providing an ideal opportunity for this deadly virus to spread. Our front-line officers continue to police this public health crisis with compassion and professionalism but it is completely unacceptable they have to face such needless risks to their own health and to their families too.”
Police dispatched officers, along with a dog unit and a helicopter, to the scene on Nursery Road, finding the site with music coming from inside.
The incident came after another party was broken up in Birmingham, where attendees tried to hide in cupboards to avoid detection by police. More than 50 people from as far away as Newcastle, Nottingham and London attended a party in the city on Friday night.
The breach came only a day after Priti Patel, the Home Secretary, announced that £800 fines for parties of more than 15 people would be introduced the following week. Police issued 50 fixed penalty notices as well as five £1,000
fines at an event in student accommodation, with police now searching CCTV after one officer was assaulted.
Footage released by West Midlands Police featured one officer telling the lockdown rulebreakers: “Come on folks, Covid-19 is real. Out you come. You are in breach of Covid, you will be issued with a fine.”
Insp Steve Barnes said: “We understand that young people are frustrated at not being able to enjoy themselves and I do feel their pain.
“But we have to stick to the rules so that we can get back to some sort of normality sooner rather than later.”
Other members of the public have attempted to avoid lockdown fines for their behaviour.
One man in Essex was fined £200 by police yesterday after he told officers that a children’s football match was exempt from coronavirus restrictions because it was “elite sport”.