Slashdot Mirror
UK Police Raid Party After Seeing "All-Night" Tag On Facebook
An anonymous reader writes "Apparently the police like to spend their time trawling our private information on Facebook looking for criminals. '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 would be arrested. The birthday barbecue was busted up before they even had a chance to plug the music in, reports the BBC. 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.' The event's organizer, Andrew Poole, said, 'The police had full-on camouflage trousers on and body-armour, it was ridiculous. There were also several plain-clothes officers as well ... they kept on insisting it has been advertised it as an all-night rave on the internet. The times on it were put as "overnight" in case people wanted to sleep-over, but after being explained this they were still banging on saying it was advertised on the internet. They wouldn't accept it wasn't a rave. It was in a completely isolated field.'"
There are all kinds of stories of the lunacy going on in the States, too. Anybody reading slashdot / digg/ reddit etc would get a completely distorted view of what America is like, just as you seem to have with the UK.
Since Thatcher took exception to the actual all-night raves that went on in the early nineties. ...
Mrs Thatcher had been out of power for 4 years when that bill went through Parliament.
Guess you were too busy popping pills at those all night parties to notice though ;P
If the party is too loud, I'm quite sure there would be existing laws on the books to deal with that. Noise ordinances and the like, specifically aimed at people who are just too loud, especially too loud late at night.
If the party was held somewhere illegally -- hi mr. warehouse -- there is also a set of laws to deal with that. Trespass laws.
No, this law was passed to stop people from having raves when it was held on private land, with permission, in areas where nobody would be calling in complaining about noise. Because of the evil MDMA and K and pot these kids were taking. It's all for the children, understand, they need to be protected via jail time and criminal records.
We in the US had a similar deal pass, but it's not nearly so draconian or invasive... but then again, Brits will be Brits and if there's anything British it's draconian and invasive police forces (I kid, but only *slightly*).
Why didn't they use discretion? Because that would be admitting wrong on their part. Like that would fucking happen -- nosir, it matters not that they were expecting glowstick-wielding pacifier-chewers and found 30-somethings with a grill and beer. They came to break up a party and by god nothing is going to deter them from running around in their ninja get-up barking orders at confused and upset people. You've gotta feel like you've got a big dick somehow, and admitting they goofed and called all their buddies to come help for no reason is about as far opposite a big-dick feeling you can get this side of your gramma applying ice to your boys wearing naught but a sheer negligee.
... still waiting for this free-as-in-beer free beer I keep hearing about.
It became illegal about 15 years ago - from TFA, it states Section 63 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994. This basically criminalised raves (which at the time were being demonised from hysteria and moral panicing from the tabloids and the politicians), even if they are held on legal ground.
AFAICT, it criminalises any gathering of over 100 people in a public place where music is played (defined infamously as "sounds wholly or predominantly characterised by the emission of a succession of repetitive beats"), unless they have obtained the appropriate entertainment licence, but furthermore, any it allows the police to disperse any gathering of 2 or more people if the police think they're preparing a rave, or 10 or more people if the police think they're waiting for a rave.
No evidence, no courts, no right to appeal.
Of course, the police deserve criticism for applying the law in a case that was clearly not in its original spirit, but let's not remember the law they used to do it is broad and draconian. The worrying thing is that the police haven't backed down and acknowledged it as a mistake - they still believe that anything advertised on the Internet as an "all-night party" should be illegal. What is this, a curfew? Telling us when bed time is? Talk about nanny-state - it's like the strict rules my college used to have about parties, where you needed permission, and parties had to be over by midnight.
From TFA, the polic: "far more resources would have been used to police the event". In my experience of Cambridge's Strawberry Fair, these resources would predominantly have involved the police doing a fishing expedition in order to catch people with cannabis on them (I experienced this first hand when travelling through Cambridge Train Station that day - even though I wasn't going to the fair, every single person getting off the train that day was detained for about 30 minutes for stop and search for drugs).