Riot police raid birthday barbecue for 'all-night' Facebook tag Riot police stormed a man's 30th birthday barbecue for 15 guests because it was advertised as an "all-night" party on Facebook. Four police cars, a riot van, and a force helicopter were dispatched to a privately-owned field in a small village near Sowton, Devon in the UK on Saturday, ordering the party shut down or everyone …
Or was he silly enough to have his profile 'Open'?
Yes, overdone, heavy handed, bad PR, and all the rest of it for sure. But- If you advertise a party as all night in a way that's open to the public... you're in danger of being gatecrashed by all kinds of undesirables, not necessarily just the boys in blue.
Over here in Germany, in my Big City By The River, you are — effective today — no longer allowed to carry glass-containers (like a glass or a bottle) in a certain popular amusement district during the night hours. That is supposed to be a precaution to stop people getting wounded, which is a major issue at nights. All fine and dandy, but if you happen to LIVE in this district, you are not supposed to have glass on you either, unless it is "closed and unreachable", ergo in a closed backpack or locked suitcase (like a gun), and shopping bags don't qualify. You are also not supposed to reach for a glass-container while passing through that district IN YOUR CAR. "You are advised to use plastic if you want to take a nip by the red light" is what the paper said. You might be stopped by the police at any time and if you fail to discard your glass-container at that point there will be a hefty fine.
Why am I telling this? Because I found parts of this to be pretty ridiculous, namely the car and resident related bits. Now according to your article, what they are telling us effectively is that in the UK there are police officers watching FACEBOOK for parties, stopping violent party outrage before it even gets started. That is just... awesome. We still have so much to learn over here in terms of applied fascism, I don't know whether we will ever be able to catch up!
I'm just glad I live in America, where the repetitive sounds of copier machine parties can blare without concern for whether they will be mistaken for a rave ... where birthday celebrations involving under 20 people on private property are still regarded as non-threatening events ... and where it costs way more than 200 bucks to dispatch a police helicopter. Enjoy your warm beer and boiled beef, dudes. That's as good as it gets.
Going to look at the 'rave' and talk to the organiser is one thing. Storming it with a waste of resources is another - ridiculous.
If the ranking officer who gave the order for this charade (assuming it was someone higher than rank and file plod, who probably get a lot of flack for decisions that weren't there's to disobey) lacks the common sense that is clear to see when you know the whole story then
a) the wrong people are in charge (look at the DeMenzes shooting - commanders made the screwups)
b) no flipping wonder organised parties go underground, and when good stuff is driven underground then dirtier stuff gets even deeper. And that probably involves gangs, violence, drunks and all sorts of things the police SHOULD be dealing with (and not always by force at that).
Fail cos with happenings like this the police force deserve a lot of the flack they get - and all sorts of other bad stuff you can legitemately say about the police as an organisation.
So, had they not stormed it with riot police and a helicopter, it would have taken them even MORE resources than that to "police" a BBQ with 15 people attending? Forget the suicide bombings, all Al Qaeda needs is a big bag of charcoal and some beefburgers and they'll overwhelm our "law enforcement" buffoons!
Now, if they're going Gestapo on anything listed on Facebook as an all-nighter, everyone is hereby invited to my all-nighter at Gordon Brown's place. All welcome, particularly jackbooted stormtroopers who think massive overreactions somehow "save" resources...
Why does this type of harrassment never make the nation news, or local news. Could it be that the Beeb and ITV get 50% of thier programs sponsored by the cops so they dont want to show them being a bunch of muppets??
They should be ridiculed and then prosecuted for this.
is the mad cow on about??
"On this occasion, we were extremely concerned how the event had been advertised on the internet as an all-night party and it was therefore necessary to take the appropriate steps."
Sorry, so what, the police were "extremely concerned" that there might be an all night party somewhere?!? Sorry, did I miss something?! If it wasn't so fucking symptomatic of everything that is going very wrong with this country (and the world) today it would be fucking hilarious.
Oh my god, people are having a party, and it might last some time. NO WAY. Not in this dictatorship, sonny jim! There might even have been DRUGS. NO WAY!?! Quick, lets get them in the army and ship them out to get killed for no reason whatsoever, but for shitting christs sake dont let them get high all night.
that facebook is a bloody menace. He would have ended up with 14 ex-schoolfriends who never talked to him in school....
they also need to ensure that no pictures were taken of the bust for section 44 reasons (or 43 or whateverthefuck they feel like).
I hope they were doing a hog roast.... i love the smell of a burning pig.....
Pretty much sums up the police and bureaucracy in general these days, though I would have loved to see the birthday guy take a stand and refuse to pack up - Would be interesting to see how long an arrest for "quiet orderly conduct in a private place" stands up with the IPCC involved.
Nope, it's the 17th of July, not April the 1st. Holy crap. This is real.
What's freaking me out is how the rozzers got wind of this menace to society. Either they were trawling Facebook or someone dobbed them in - in which case perhaps there's more to this than meets the eye. Who are Mr. Poole's enemies, I wonder?
Well they should have read the rules more carefully.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban
Taliban rules are clear enough:
Sharia law was interpreted to ban a wide variety of activities hitherto lawful .... music, dancing, hanging pictures in homes, clapping during sports events, ...pool tables, chess, masks, alcohol, tapes, computers, VCRs, television, anything that propagates sex and is full of music, wine...
So what did they expect? The Taliban came in and shut them down, checked their phones for dirty pictures of women (another Taliban crime) and restored double plus Devon goodness.
"far more resources would have been used" - jesus on a stick, how many dumb-ass devon cops would they have actually sent to prevent 15 people eating bugers? It's good to know that our taxes aren't wasted by idiots with nothing better to do. They must be gagging for crime down there. One idiot devon cop here's about a birthday b-b-q and figures it must be a terrorist bash.
actually, that's quite scary. if thats what dumb cops do in Devon then i should be worries as i live in London and i just ate a burger - should i be expecting the riot squad (eep, I better go and hide under the bed as my friend has just opened a jar of mustard!)
of data abuse.
The police should be banned form using computers, unless they hold at least a computer science degree, enough of this cowboy computer usage, computers are not toys and should be used by properly qualified professionals. Computers access should be removed from the digitally challenged.
It is just mayhem.
I wonder if these brave plod will feature on Police Camera Action?
The £200 sounds like vague figure made up so it does not sound as if too much money had been wasted. If it had been a real rave then they would have claimed it cost tens of thousands of pounds to deploy the helicopter.
The all night parties celebrating when Gordon Broon gets voted out of Downing Street will have to be careful they do not get raided by the Keystone Cops.
... They have apparently complained about loud music at his address in the past.
So I guess the neighbours decided to do the low-tech version of SWATting (the habit of calling the SWAT team to an address under the guise of a robbery/hostage situation)... They called the cops and told them that there's a rave happening.
Nice neighbours.
If your coppers like doughnuts as much as those in the USofA, there'd a-been 15 trampled guests with jackboot prints on their backs. Maybe even a killin' or two.
And of course stoopid is a stoopid does. He must have left facebook with all the defaults in place. If you're going to be dumb; you'd better be tough.
So who's going to be the first to wire up their house & garden with all the webcams, mobile-phone videos and sound recording kit they can lay their hands on. Then hold a well-publicised "night time" event that is both harmless and legal and wait for everyone to get threatened with a good tazering by a gaggle of badly led PCSOs - grumpy 'cos ithey're missing afternoon telly on CBBC?
If there just happened to be a few local reporters[1] present, that might add an interesting perspective, too.
[1] Though as noted above, their silence seems to be deafening - maybe they are too dependent on tip-offs from plod for some of their other stories, or does the editor-in-chief have a funny handshake?
Following the link from the article to the BBC site, and following a further link, one finds this. Suddenly things aren't quite so clear cut.
<snip>
Police believe they prevented a rave in Devon on Saturday night.
About 30 people had turned up at Sowton near Exeter by mid-day on Saturday afternoon to what organisers said was a 30th birthday party.
But local people, fearing a rave was going to take place after previous events with loud music at the same premises, alerted the police.
Organisers have been told to get licences from the local authority before they organise further events.
The event was closed down under section 63 of the Criminal justice and Public Order Act 1994.
</snip>
But how of its age that legislation sounds, though: "wholly or predominantly characterised by the emission of a succession of repetitive beats". One can imagine all these Tory MPs sitting around, still mildly surprised that they'd won the 1992 election, trying to define something they dislike or fear in such a way that Glyndebourne or Proms In The Park doesn't get closed down under the same legislation.
"Poole said it was about 4pm when eight officers with camouflage pants and body armor jumped out of their vehicles and ordered everyone out about an hour into the party."
Good think it wasn't Gordon Freeman's 30th birthday party then. Apparently Civil Protection does not need to properly wear blue either? Nearer to you, Sierra Leone.
I feel almost sick reading this; when are we truly going to unite as a democracy and slap the silly bstards that condone this sort of act? The really scary part is, when I told someone about it; they weren't surprised at all...
Paris because, she'd have found a way to get that Barbecue roasting and the helicopter would have got a great angle.
P.S - I R no terrorist
a) an appropriate response was to bring in a riot squad? How about a quick phone call to the host or the village constable "passing by"
b) The 15 guests were ordered to leave in the middle of the afternoon because they *might* at some later time play rave music or be disorderly? On what grounds?
_Advertised_ on the Internet? Was the birthday boy promoting the event to people he didn't know? 15 people!? Really? 15? Why would the event have needed policing at all? Were they trespassing? What laws were broken?
Oh crap... now I look, I see that this story is so ridiculous that I'm actually agreeing with comments posted on the Daily Fail's readers' comments section. Ouch.
Andrew Poole, you have my sympathy - I'm sorry your birthday party was ruined by plod wanting an excuse to try on their riot gear (not much call for that in Devon, one imagines?) On the other hand, look on the bright side: you'll be dining out on this story for years to come.
I had 300 people at my wife's birthday party and you could hear the music 2 miles away (so I have been told), but law enforcement did nothing until the reports of gunfire..
Well, actually, unknown to us, they did set up a road block about a mile down the road and started turning people away at some point, but they didn't storm the place.....
Of course this was before facebook, so we just posted fliers everywhere..
That's just sooooo, wrong.
Plod is largely made up of violent sociopaths who couldn't possibly get a job with any responsibility in any real organisation (that's how an ex-copper described it to me).
They've no interest in dealing with your car being nicked.
But if there's a chance of some aggro - different matter.
Of course, *they could have just sent one copper over first, to see what was happening* (filthy liars, saying they had to do what they did or it would've been even more expensive to police it) - but no, it was a chance to inflict some aggro, so, tool up and off they go.
After we vote this current lot of godawful politicians out of the way, it would be great if we could vote the whole of the current Plod out of the way, and get some other, decent people to try being Plod instead.
"wholly or predominantly characterised by the emission of a succession of repetitive beats,"
Isnt that what pretty much ALL music is? Not to mention how is it that when the police got there they couldnt see that it was a bunch of old folks sitting around having a good time at a b-day party? I bet they had assault rifles and all for busting this up. Why didnt they just come up nicely and ask what was going on and if they could have a beer and burger?
/Fail for obvious reasons
Amusing that this story is running in the Daily Mail.
Anyway, I'd like to suggest that all English police forces have their budgets halved. They've quadrupled over the past decade (according to my council tax bill). Maybe if their resources were more precious they'd not be so quick to waste them? Or am I being naive?
Filth mouth piece lying - what a suprise
""The decision to close down a rave or illegal music festival is not taken lightly," she said." obviously it is - where was their evidence beyond a tag on face book? O wait - there was none - so the police do just do it lightly and without evidence - I wish they'd just admit it when they're behaving like a bunch of over powered thugs. They need to learn how to deal with the world before they find they're even less popular then politicos and bankers.
The spokeswoman added if the party hadn't been stormed the officers, riot police and accompanying helicopter, "far more resources would have been used to police the event and there would have been considerable disruption to neighbouring properties."
In other words: "This was nothing, we are capable of making far greater overkills." I suppose that's about right (and now we know what to do if we really want to ruin someone's party - nothing like a squad of riot police to cheer up someone's birthday).
It costs that much just to start up a helicopter and take another flight cycle off the engine.
So... playing a particular style of music is illegal? Can I borrow some of your cops for my neighborhood? They play that crap pretty much continuously.
I guess I missed my chance. I could have hacked some 911 systems for my 40th not too long ago, and had some English-style excitement.
See, this is why we need more state control, in the form of ID database and RIPA part IV.
All our communication should be in the clear and filtered by Plod, in case people organize secret assemblies and eat hamburgers at 4am.
THANK YOU POLICE, THANK YOU NU LABOUR, THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU! What would we do without your disallowing us to listen to a succession of repetitive beats?
Utter bs, whoever was responsible for this should be fired (actually I think there should be laws against the police/politicans abusing powers, laws that if broken mean you end up spending a very long time in prison, longer than people not in such positions). The police are here to serve us not rule us.
<<A police spokeswoman told the BBC the helicopter was deployed for less than 20 minutes, costing about £200>>
It'd cost that to pay the plods in overtime to get to the bloody thing! Flying, it's about £1,000/hour if you add up the salaries, maintenance, fuel, support, ATC, airport fees^H^H^H^H tax etc. If not, I'd never fly anything other than an ELA 08 (Google's your friend, folks).
Some liars there in the po-lice force. But then, Brits are getting used to it.
Me? I'm off to the pub where there's a karakoke night. Now, THAT should be made illegal.
So why don't we all advertise non exsistant all night parties on facebook. It will give the plod something relatively harmless to do, while they are looking for non existant parties at obscure locations they can't be harassing the rest of us. Could even become a new sport seeing what is the stupidist location we can get the cops to go to.
At least we have a negligible amount of religious nuts blaring anti-gay, anti-women, anti-foreigners and anything else they can imagine. Funny how that happened even though we don't have an official seperation between state and church like you guys, yet you have those in abundance...
Funny old world is it not?
Yes you are, mate. And I am apparently a "Right Wing Extremist" as predicated by our Glorious Dept of Father^H^H^H^H^H^H Homeland Security, directed by a woman who *gasp* resigned her governorship to pursue higher political ambitions.
Someone please beat me with a double-standard. I seem to enjoy it.
Paris, beat me.
if it had been a teenage girls profile, all that kit and personel would have been needed.
reg comentards moaning about how nieve the poster was "she had her profile open" or "members of the same group (group name UK) can see her profile" Oh wait! i'm having de ja vous
The fact that the police seemed on the ball about an "all night" party, in the middle of nowhere, details of which posted to an essentially public medium. I recon they should get points for effort, not ranted at for paying attention. After all, we wouldnt want coppers paying attention now, would we?
I agree that they should have done a reccy first, but if it *was* a full on rave, there wasnt *enough* recources involved.
Im also surprised that, at the time of writing (darn moderation lag - only kidding, we love you really) , only 1 of the other reg readers (superior intelect and all) seem to have picked up on this (the teenage girl angle).
Have we really devolved into Daily Wail readers moaning about "why aren't they catching real criminals?" one minute and "Of course the party was going to get out of hand, why didn't anyone do something?" the next?
That's why I left the UK. Who wants to live in a Police state? This is just the beginning. That's why I live in the Philippines now.... yeah, they're backward here, but means it will take longer before that style of leadership catches on, and even then, it will be less organized!
So did hundreds of gatecrashers turn up during the evening?
Repetitive beat huh? Ok, Maybe he'd of got away with it if he called it an Abba party!
Greetings and Salutations from across the Pond.
I take a moment to thank you for this great and unexpected gift! This story takes the heat off the southern arc of states here in the competition to find which state has the lowest average IQ! We enjoy and invite international entries in the Great Competition, and while this is truly an excellent entry, I suspect we will manage to come up with an even more bone-headed example of overkill in the near future.
In a less joking manner, though, I have to say that HAD I been in residence at said party, I suspect I would have been less than willing to get kicked out of it. I also suspect that a few arrests for this sort of public protest would have made for even more juicy headlines.
Although I am sure we do not have all the facts, I find it hard to believe that 30 year old adults would be holding a rave. That seems to be the specialty of the teenagers (who should have that sort of thing squashed) I COULD see said adults having a party with annoying loud music and too much drinking...but, in THAT case the police should deal with that AFTER the offense has happened...It is a terrible erosion of freedom (what little is left) to start policing private parties BEFORE anything has happened, because something MIGHT happen.
I could rant on, but, will finish by saying that I have great sympathy for y'all. It is a sad state of affairs that the country that created the Magna Carta has fallen into.
Regards & best of luck
Dave Mundt
<<wholly or predominantly characterised by the emission of a succession of repetitive beats>>
Snick, snick. Emission, indeed! Repetitive beats (chortle). Didn't some bird up north get an ASBO for excessively noisy rumpy-pumpy recently? No helicopter deployed there, natch. Unless it was one of those humming-bird-sized ones. In which case, where's the video??
So, that's my excuse for the Paris icon. (Titter!)
Given that Sowton Village is *within sight* of the Devon and Cornwall Police's Helipad - £200 for flying 1 mile is less good value ;)
Also given that Sowton Village is under the flightpath of Exeter Airport (1/2 a mile from the end of the runway) I wonder if any aircraft were delayed as a result of plod's over-reacting.
BTW - to launch the Helicopter would have required someone senior to authorise it - surely sending a couple of plods out in a Panda car to have a look first would have been better :)
AC because I don't want the local plod invading my parties
"the wrong people are in charge (look at the DeMenzes shooting - commanders made the screwups)"
Actually, the guys on the ground were the ones who decided to murder an unarmed man reading a newspaper and clearly in possession of nothing even remotely dangerous. It was also the guys on the ground who lied about it and changed their notebooks. The morons in charge were, however, still morons.
Promotions all round!
If they hadn't started playing music, the police wouldn't have had any powers under the CJA to stop the party, assuming they owned the location. If I were the organiser, I'd be getting on to the Police complaints authority.
Note to Americans, and other non UKers: The Criminal Justice Act 1994 was specifically designed by the Conservative government in the mid 90s to crack down on the private party scene. AKA Illigal Raves. The Act was designed to get the land owners on side (who would usually vote tory anyway) and liberally peppered with enough other clauses to keep MPs on side. IIRC there was the lowering of the gay age of consent, which would get onside a lot of the more liberal MPs who objected to the 'repetitive beats' part. It's a shitty law and new labour shoud have replaced it with something far better.
I have offen wondered if there is any music that doesn't rely upon repetitive beats, I've heard some 'protest' music of the time which was arythmic and it makes you want to pour fire into your ears.
It really is so simple. You would think that to be a police officer you would require a certain amount of that very rare item sometimes known as common sense.
For numerous years now the police forces of this country have been employing graduates (And no, not graduates of courses you think would be of benefit to such a position, think of courses that require you to watch Trisha and read the Star for 3 years) and then fast tracking them to Inspector status.
My point? Have you ever met a graduate WITH common sense?
This is a joke right? Sowton is not far up the road from me, it's a small village full of old people, all they would have to do is switch their hearing aids off.
Funny how a couple of weeks ago there was a proper full on rave, with beer, woman an drugs an everything. In the fields outside Newton Pop that could be heard 3 miles away that lasted until 4am and plod didn't lift a single jack boot. It were brill.
I suppose the P.A.C.E bill doesn't cover the police commiting acts of gross Twattery.
This post has been deleted by its author
With all the country's police forces acting like utter cocks (BBQs, photographers etc) I was wondering, would it be possible to take out a private prosecution against those involved for abuse of power or some other such offence? I ask as it's quite obvious that no bastard in charge will ever do anything about these systemic abuses.
i put a link to this story on my facebook account.
as far as i concerned, these "police officers" are criminals.
whoever authorised this raid should be arrested.
..and then have his IQ tested..the moron.
btw, does that ETERNAL stupidity regarding "repetative beats" (michael howard, now there's another idiot!) actually extend to military marching bands?
i thought not..
pathetically comical..i'll bet non-british are laughing at us.
For those of your who commented about the 1994 act, and for those who commented about the recent child protection legislation... The 1994 act would have NEVER have got into the statute books based on the 'repetitive music' clause without it riding on the back of legislation which included child protection sections. In fact most of the act was about child protection. Makes me wonder what other noxious legislation is riding on the back of the current crop of poorly thought out politico guff.
I think it was the BBC site that I read a claim that the helicopter was returning from another job according the Police spokeswoman like that makes it OK. It sat over the house for about half an hour burning up fuel when it could have been returned to base. This would have saved the taxpayer the cost of the fuel and not taken the aircraft another 30 minutes towards its' next scheduled maintenance interval.
I heard a rather disquieting thing about Police helicopters the other day and, since moving back to Glasgow, it seems to have been borne out. Helicopters are being deployed more and more lately, not because they are needed but firstly to add a hefty amount to any fines levied on miscreants and secondly to make it seem that the chopper is somehow essential to the policing task. This ensures that budgets only ever go the right way i.e. up.
I know the helicopters are useful tools for fighting certain crimes but we've all seen those times when the helicopter is hovering or flitting about with its' light on when nothing appears to be going on. How long will it be before they try to make the business case for non-stop multi-chopper patrols?
has been law for years - its a Tory law which was passed when raves first began in the late 80's /early 90's - it was said then that it was a stupid & dangerous law, and events have proved this correct.
Don't vote Tory - it'll be the same but with even more contempt for the working class (which is nearly everyone - if your sole income comes from work - you are working class - NOT middle class - geddit?
everyone else has posted the intelligent (and totally accurate) social commentaries and intelligent insults about the police, so I will say just this..
What a bunch of complete and total moronic, obviously lobotomised, common-sense-deprived, money-wasting,liberty-revoking, fascist, over-powered, out-of-control fucktards!
I'm having a BBQ tonight. I'm half tempted to whack it up on facebook to see if I get any unexpected guests. Better put some extra burgers on just in case...
"A police spokeswoman told the BBC the helicopter was deployed for less than 20 minutes, costing about £200."
This is a blatent lie by the police. It would cost a lot more than £200. This proves once again that the police are deceiptful & untrustworthy.
I vote for filming the police at every possible oppotunity to be the new national passtime - it's the only way to police the police
>> "wholly or predominantly characterised by the emission of a succession of repetitive beats," Isnt that what pretty much ALL music is?
No. The wording of the legislation was designed to specifically target dance music while allowing such things as opera / classical or jazz events to continue unhindered by the legislation (as heaven forbid that MPs should have one of their nights out messed up).
... that fact alone is no reason to bring in such pre- emptive overkill. Would it really have been so difficult for one of the coppers to let the birthday boy know that they have received complaints about past events at his property and will not hesitate to shut him down the minute the noise exceeds "X" decibels?
I'm not calling Britain down, I mean, I really love the place. But, remember when Tony Blair talked about praying with Bush, seeking divine guidance for their illegal war in Iraq? Just sayin'.
Personally, though, if I lived in Devon, I'd go around to the Police HQ and make sure Dick Cheney hasn't moved into the basement bomb shelter.
Only found one mention of it in this entire thread but it's the truest, most appropriate label you could give to actions like this.
Threatening to arrest people for a crime they weren't going to commit that hadn't even been not committed yet.
Way to go, Britain. Don't you people read books?
Welcome to England as Hitler would have run it!
Where you can be Shot for being slightly Tanned!
Arrested for being a "Tall" Photographer
Have your birthday party stormed by the not so Secret Police
Have your Tax's spent on Wide screen Tv's, Porn and Duck houses by MPs while everyone you know is losing there jobs
And generally 1000 other rather bizzar or sick things this countrys goverment gets away with because even if you protest or speak up you will just end up in a jail!
When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.
Then they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
I did not protest;
I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews,
I did not speak out;
I was not a Jew.
When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out for me.
I expect this message to be tracked back to me any second!
@ Bad Beaver - "Over here in Germany, ... We still have so much to learn over here in terms of applied fascism, I don't know whether we will ever be able to catch up!" - That's the best comment on this whole thread - nice one!
Isn't Devon the home county for raves, before the moved over to places like Essex in the 80's? If not there, then Cornwall or Somerset or Wiltshire (Glastonbury etc). Now think about it like this - if the Facebook notice was open, Plod would have considered this pre-emptive action as a way of avoiding something worse later on, if a bunch of unknowns had gatecrashed it - it's not a stand-alone thing when we read stories about public-school kids turning up in SW towns and behaving, like, completely irresponsibly, you know. US cousins, think of Spring Break on Panama City Beach, but with fewer kids and not quite as much white sand (which, when I was last there, was covered in fine seaweed; not so nice). There're also stories of houses getting trashed when parties were advertised on open sites.
However, it was completely over the top for a first response - 1 or 2 in a squad car should have made the first call to work out what was going on. I'll bet this particular bunch of 'Hot Fuzz' addicts didn't stick around until, say, midnight just to make sure no-one else had spotted it and decided to turn up unannounced...
The real problem here is that terrible being "A. Spokesperson".
Rather than saying, "OK so we screwed up and we're very, very sorry." They compound the problem by spouting shite about it costing more to police a party with 17 guests than to send in the riot police and a helicopter to break it up. Has anybody submitted an FoE request regarding the cost of this little operation yet?
They raided it just because it was advertised as an all night party. So by that logic they must raid every all night party advertised on Facebook. Except they clearly don't. So some pillock went off hal cock at this one and rather than the force admitting to this they come up with some cock and bull story that suggests that all night parties are somehow illegal.
An all nighter. Let them try and find me ;). For anyone interested it's in Yorkshire Nr. Cott.
@You asshats in the UK get what you deserve for all your moral posturing and elitism.
[http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/07/17/police_raid_birthday_barbecue_facebook_invitation/comments/#c_541387]
-Ignorant pillock.
'It was fortunate that the force helicopter was able to fly over the site as they were returning from another task.'
I wonder what that other task was.
Any chance it was something that didn't really justify the use of the helicopter, and they had to quickly come up with another excuse for having it up?
"A police spokeswoman told the BBC the helicopter was deployed for less than 20 minutes, costing about £200."
Horseshit! I am willing to bet good money it costs more than £200 just to get a helicopter off the ground, never mind to the riotous 15-person burger bash that it's supposed to be quelling.
"Why don't you guys protest and vote these idiots out of power????"
(a) we are protesting (and have been since the early 90s when this law was enacted - by the previous government btw.), you can read I take it?
(b) In the UK we get a vote as and when a general election is called. This can be anything up to 5 years from the last one* and it is entirely up to the sitting government to decide when to call it. As it is inconceivable that this lot will be returned to power we will get the election at the last minute, however it is not really a fault on our behalf if we obey the democratic rules of our society, is it now?
RE: The UK is worse than the US comments:
I think this is a questionable matter, we still have nothing close to the patriot acts, Gitmo or extraordinary rendition - might I recommend that our American cousins put their own house in order before trying to get all pissy about ours? I do admit it is a funny thing for you to take the piss out of us for though.....
*Actually a new election doesn't absolutely need to be called but there would effectively be no government and it would get rather complicated to run the country (contrary to the perceived US wisdom Her majesty has no political power as such so cannot run things. I doubt she would want to anyhow - so it would fall to all the Sir. Humphreys to govern which would not be a good thing) - so it is highly unlikely this would ever happen.
Some obnoxious twats had their car - sorry, mobile sound system - parked 50m from my house making a really terrible racket for a really intolerably long time late/night early one morning ... I cracked and called the police (the local number, not 999).
Please would you come and tell them to turn it down/off?
Sorry Sir, can't do that...
Why on earth not? Apart from actually breaching the peacefulness of the street, how about "behaviour likely to cause a breach of the peace?"
Don't have any evidence of that sir.
Well.... put it this way. If you don't come down here pronto *I* am going to breach the peace because of their damn noise...
Be there right away sir!
Those were the days. I bet nicking policeman's helmets is a terrorist offence now too...
Quit acting like we're any better. We, too, call in the troops if we think a bunch of people are getting together to have fun. (Thanks for the link, AC@09:16.) Why are we so bent on busting these things up in the first place?
Mine's the one with the Infected Mushroom in the pocket.
What a police state! I mean, jeez. I'm not a fan of lawyers but I think you may need more lawyers in your country. I'm not a fan of lawyers, but the police there are clearly presently unchecked against the populace. If police start getting suits brought against them for shit like this then the lawyers will act as a check against unregulated police behavior. I think the police are big on keeping the paperwork in order so will take suits VERY VERY seriously.
"Isnt that what pretty much ALL music is?"
No.
As I've said before around here, there's more to music than four-minute "songs" by a Popular Beat Combo, regardless of what the iCrap fixated and their shepherds at the Big Labels may tell you.
Still, look on the bright side. At least you've come up with something that Mozart, Dylan and Stockhausen could probably agree on by way of objection.
I was working security recently at a student union bar.
The dorm opposite had advertised a house party on facebook with over 200 people confirmed.
Most of these were under 16.
On the night at that dorm there were people drink driving, fights kicking off, people visbly taking drugs in the window and bottles getting thrown at the bar from the dorm.
The police refused to come out to it even when the bar manager, the head of the student union and our head of security had phone the police.
BTW, it was not NULABOUR that brought in the law about "repitive beats", it was the Conservative wa*kers in the 1994 Criminal Justice Act, section 63 :
see
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts1994/ukpga_19940033_en_8#pt5-pb2-l1g63
But, it IS NULABOUR that has continued to use these powers and greatly add to them.
Bastards !!!
It was not a raid in the traditional sense, merely an admin cock-up.
One squad car was supposed to go to the chippie to pick up nightshift orders but circumstances and delays meant that by the time the squad care got there the chippie was closed.
I mean, what does one do?
A hungry nightshift - no goodies from the chippie.
It took all of 30' on the internet to find a public invitation to a free BBQ. Well from that point on it was almost impossible to hold back volunteers to "raid" (I use the term loosely) the rave BBQ.
Maybe the helicopter was returning from dropping one of the Royals off at their girlfriends.
And yes, there was that other Facecrap party made up of 16 year olds that got out of control the other day. But that was reported to the police, the police response was appropriate and several arrests were made. It has nothing to do with how you advertside a party, it's about turning up to have a look or waiting for the complaints to come in.
I don't think the police are allowed to perform pre-emptive strikes against non-terrorist subjects.
"But how of its age that legislation sounds, though: "wholly or predominantly characterised by the emission of a succession of repetitive beats". One can imagine all these Tory MPs sitting around, still mildly surprised that they'd won the 1992 election, trying to define something they dislike or fear in such a way that Glyndebourne or Proms In The Park doesn't get closed down under the same legislation."
Pretty much spot-on there. The particular piece of legislation in question is the 1994 Criminal Justice and Public Order Act, which contains this gem:
"(b) “music” includes sounds wholly or predominantly characterised by the emission of a succession of repetitive beats. "
Who said our present government has a monopoly on overly-vague and pontless legislation? For those who don't recall, the politician who was Home Secretary at the time, and is therefore responsible for this nonsense was none other than Michael 'Something of the Night' Howard. It is probably in part due to the number of people who recall and resent this particular Act that Michael Howard lost the last election for the Tories and we now have that one-eyed twat in power. Not that the Tories were ever any better of course.
"Given that Sowton Village is *within sight* of the Devon and Cornwall Police's Helipad"
So possibily some senior Plod lives in the area
Good job there were no Johnny foreigner electricians at the "rave" or the only "emission of a succession of repetitive beats" would have been from an H&K
£200 for the chopper…… FFS….. You coulden't push it out of the hangar for that!!!
yes indeed. despite the prolific police 'we're good' PR campaigns, actions speak louder than words.
besides behaving very badly (stazi style), they also just don't do their job, for which we pay high taxes. i find this unacceptable.
has anyone out there in UK had any decent response or resolution to a burglary in recent years?
Only the best parties get raided by the police, it's a mark of honourable distinction for your party to be so invaded. To be raided by the riot police? Even to be present at such a party will write your name in history and the George Cross seems in order for the host.
I know, I know it was just a mistake. But how often do you get to say "my parties are so good they get busted by riot police"?
"Why don't you guys protest and vote these idiots out of power????"
It's kind of like in the US. You have Democrats and Republicans; and they're both crooked and idiots. Now, which group of idiots do you want to vote out to let the other set of idiots in??
@AC - 18:10 GMT -Obviously, the police didn't bring the necessary equipment when they came.
The would have involved having a brain and an ounce of common sense. Both seriously lacking.
@AC - 12:37 GMT
You forgot "They're picking on Scientology"
I really have to apologize for my cousins on both sides of the pond. They have failed governments and the people there have forgotten the sweet smell of freedom. Perhaps one day they will throw off the yoke of governemt and start afresh.
@ dr_forrester
""""
See, over here in the States, we have a right "peaceably to assemble."
Maybe you should try a written constitution.
""""
Yes - Indeed you may freely assemble in the designated Free Speach Areas...
Maybe you lot should try a government that actually respect the constitution before ranting about the importance of a mere piece of paper in a museum?
So the police spend their day checking out Facebook? Tax money well spent - why is it not blocked in this particular station? Is Facebook data mined by the police these days to pick out people who say "nasty" things about them/government/photographers?
200 quid to fly a chopper? Well I'll book it for a week please, and maybe the iPolice can share the secrets of flying for so cheap - I am sure BA would be interested.
God help you all - all you Bored Brits waiting in damp queues to complain about the lenth of the queue.
I would go on but I am going to the beach now with glass bottles of COLD beer.
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