Andrew Poole had his 30th Birthday Barbecue raided by riot police after he invited 17 guests on Facebook to a barbecue that could go on ‘all-night’ in a friend’s private field, in Sowton near Exeter. The event had just got under way when 15 people were stopped from eating burgers ‘in-a-funny-way-that-displeased-the-chief-constable’ at 4pm, by eight coppers in riot gear under section 63 of the Criminal justice and Public Order Act 1994. This charming piece of legislation pisses on your right to freedom of assembly on private land, in case you might decide to play music with a repetitive beat. While all this was going on, a Devon & Cornwall Police helicopter hovered above for 20 minutes. I for one fully believe that the Helicopter was returning from another task and wasn’t deployed especially to video and co-ordinate a response to these evil meat grillers, just like a spokesman for Devon & Cornwall Police has told the press.
Now I can understand that some meddlesome ratbag from the village, saw people going into a field with some music equipment and thought an illegal rave was about to happen and called the Police (God forbid someone might enjoy themselves, better put a stop to that!) However, every news article on this story clearly states that the Police told Mr Poole, that the raid was because he had described the party as an ‘all-night’ event on Facebook. Given the security nature of Facebook, the Police just may have struck lucky with party they could find with a simple search, but I think this is unlikely. A far more plausible explanation is that the authorities have access to the Facebook databases at Admin level and have scripts actively searching for keywords. I think it’s time we all flooded Facebook with false-flag rave events, stating clearly within the body of the invite, that it will not happen (to avoid being blag-bagged raided for wasting Police time), yet flood their little covert security operation!
I’m not shocked nor am I surprised. It’s typical that the local Police Force had their arresting blinkers on and completely ignored the fact (or didn’t bother looking into) that the ‘All night barbecue cum rave orgy’ was on private land.
No rules being broken, just a anal neighbour and jobsworth Police Officers trying to make a serious arrest to look good on their permanent records.
“Birthday BBQ raided by Riot Police on Facebook intelligence”
Now, we all know that “police intelligence” is the archetypal oxymoron. But this must be the absolute first and only time that the words “Facebook” and “intelligence” have been placed in the same sentence.
Best wishes, G.