Hundreds descend on beach for illegal rave after police foil ‘cookout’ event
Furious East Sussex residents are up in arms after people gathered for an ‘illegal rave’ which broke social distancing guidelines on a beach.
Images on social media show hundreds of people gathering at the event in Romney Marsh’s Greatstone beach, where police attended and patrolled the area. It came after a similar planned event, branded a ‘beach cookout’, at nearby Camber was shut down by police before it could go ahead.
The event was described as ‘private’ with no alcohol or food being sold, with organisers claiming the first release of coach tickets ‘sold out’.
Residents raised concerns on social media after four coach loads of people and cars filled with dozens of revellers attended the gathering on the picturesque beach, KentLive reported. The incident is the latest in a series of mass gatherings seen in the UK despite the coronavirus crisis, with meetings of more than 30 people still banned.
Tickets, costing £27.54, were still being sold by Crawley-based organiser Flavour Boss on Friday, August 6 for a ‘secret beach location’ from ’12pm to late’.
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However, Rother Police confirmed permission to hold the event was not granted and officers would be monitoring any large gatherings.
A gathering eventually took place up the coast at Greatstone, though it has not been officially confirmed that it was run by the same organisers.
A spokesman for Kent Police told KentLive: ‘Kent Police is aware that a large group of people attended the Greatstone beach area at around 3.30pm on Sunday 9 August 2020.
‘Officers are engaging with those in attendance and reminding them of the latest government advice around social distancing while also encouraging them to take personal responsibility for adhering to it.
‘Officers will remain in the area as part of their patrols’.
A spokesman for Flavour Boss told Metro.co.uk it ‘wasn’t supposed to be illegal’ and that the event was meant to be a way to give underprivileged children a good time.
He added that organisers had been in discussion with police but were told that they could not go ahead with the original event on Friday.
The spokesman continued: ‘It wasn’t supposed to happen the way it happened. We did exactly what they (the police) asked us to do.
‘Police said they couldn’t have it on Friday (in Camber). We were doing what we could do.
‘It wasn’t an event it was a trip.’
The spokesman said they were currently trying to clean up the rubbish from the ‘trip’.
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