Police break up illegal rave in forest
16 July 2007 | 08:36
JAMES MORTLOCK
Police blocked the entance to the rave SCORES of police officers from across East Anglia were yesterday drafted in to break up an illegal rave in a Suffolk forest.
More than 70 officers were involved in the operation to stop the party at Ingham, near Bury St Edmunds, and five people have been arrested on suspicion of organising the event.
Police chiefs leading three units of officers – one each from Suffolk, Essex and Norfolk – said there had been few problems and the rave of up to 1,000 revellers had been stopped relatively peacefully thanks to the number of officers brought in.
The major operation, in which officers also seized sound equipment, follows two similar raves in recent months – one at Parham Airfield and the other at Euston, near Thetford – which both erupted in violence towards the police.
Supt Alan Caton stressed illegal raves on privately owned land would not be tolerated in Suffolk: “This is the start of summer and our message is clear.
“We have a duty to ensure where possible that rural places are not subjected to the noise and disruption that these parties cause. Where evidence is found to identify the people responsible we will do everything we can to bring them to justice.”
A police spokeswoman said officers were called to the rave on Forestry Commission land in the early hours of yesterday: “Our aim was to take swift action to disperse revellers, arrest organisers, seize equipment, minimise damage to land and prevent disturbance to local people.”
The illegal party was still going on at lunchtime and ravers leaving the forest clearing insisted they were doing no harm. One, from near Newmarket, said: “It’s not upsetting anyone – there are no houses around here. It’s just young people having good time.
Despite this, one furious local, whose house was close to the event, said he was fed up with raves in the King’s Forest around Ingham and Culford. “I’m very angry. This seems to happened every year. I’m a hard working taxpayer and I expect if I didn’t have a tax disc I’d get pulled up but this sort of thing is allowed to go on.
“We were woken up by it early this morning – you just don’t want it on a Sunday morning,” he said.
But other locals were more tolerant – insisting that the music could not be heard from Ingham itself. Tim Root, who lives in the village, said he only heard the rave as he walked his dog and could see nothing wrong as long as the parties were kept out of the way and the revellers left no damage or litter behind.
Dog walker Gillian Voice, from Thetford, who was in the forest with her husband, Derek, said they could clearly hear the beat of the music: “They don’t hurt us and I think it’s quite good music. As long as they don’t harm the trees or the countryside and clear up after themselves I don’t mind. It’s when they don’t that the problems start.”
Yesterday’s rave follows a number in Suffolk over the past few months. In May, revellers at a party on Parham Airfield surrounded a marked police car while the officers were still inside before destroying the vehicle and a “hostile” group sat on a patrol car as officers attempted to stop an illegal party near Euston in April.
