By Press Association 2021
Damage to All Saints East Horndon
Police have fined a man £10,000 after he admitted being an organiser of an unlicensed music event at a 500-year-old church.
All Saints Church in East Horndon in Essex was trashed by hundreds of revellers at the New Year’s Eve event.
Essex Police said that a 32-year-old man from Wickford was arrested at Heathrow Airport on Tuesday on suspicion of burglary.
The force said he was interviewed and admitted being an organiser of the unlicensed music event at the disused church.
Equipment that was seized when officers stopped the party at All Saints (Essex Police/PA)
Members of a conservation group supporting a 500-year-old church that was trashed during an illegal rave on New Year’s Eve say they have been “blown away” after receiving more than £22,000 in donations to help with repairs.
Hundreds of party-goers attended the event at Grade II listed All Saints Church in East Horndon, Essex, and three people were arrested.
Essex Police said organisers set up DJ decks, a bar, and even hired portable toilets for revellers.
All Saints in East Horndon (Friends of All Saints East Horndon/PA)
Volunteers said the ravers smashed a window, wired sound equipment into the church’s fuse box and churned up the ground outside with vans, causing around £1,000 of damage.
What they found was not actually an illegal rave, however. Instead, police officers found a queue of pensioners, aged in their 80s and 90s, all queuing patiently to receive their vaccine shots. A world away from an illegal rave. I mean, if public services weren t as stretched as they were right now, you d probably say it was funny.
Fortunately, the police were able to provide assistance with traffic in the area, and so it wasn t a complete waste of their time.
Apparently, the tip-off came not as the result of a hoax call, but from concerned neighbours. After a spate of illegal raves in the Essex area of late, some residents had seen an increase in traffic and assumed the worst.
Essex Police Responds To Calls Of Rave, Finds Elderly Waiting For COVID Vaccine
KEY POINTS
Essex is in COVID-19 alert level 5
Alert level 5 means that COVID-19 epidemic is in general circulation
When the Essex Police responded to calls of a gathering in violation of COVID-19 rules, they thought they were going to shut down a rave, but the officers only found elderly citizens queueing up to get coronavirus vaccine shot.
Neighbors had reported revellers, who they thought were flouting COVID-19 norms, outside Saxon Hall on Friday, according to the New York Post, which cited Echo News.
The police only found the elderly lining up to get the coronavirus vaccine. “It was really funny when the police arrived as they had been notified that there was a ‘rave’ taking place at Saxon Hall only to find 80- and 90-year-olds on wheelchairs,” Saxon Hall chairman Dennis Baum said.