Today I have been speaking with senior officers from Greater Manchester Police (GMP) regarding the holding of illegal raves, like the ones which happened at the weekend at Daisy Nook Country Park and Carrington. These events were reckless and dangerous, not just as they were a serious contravention of the lockdown and social distancing rules, but we have all seen the extremely sad news of the death of a man, rape of a woman and three stabbings.
We cannot condone this kind of behaviour so, as our constituency has a lot of open spaces, I am pleased that GMP have been so proactive in putting an action plan and task force together to identify and prevent any similar events taking place here. I will be in regular contact with the police and am receiving updates on their intelligence gathering activity, and I am reassured that officers are ready to be deployed should there be any indication of another event.
We are also working with the local council to get the message out to as many people as possible that events like this are totally unacceptable. I have been speaking to community groups in potential hotspot areas today to ensure that they are fully informed and am pleased that we have a small army of residents who are helping to alert authorities to any signs of activity so that any occurrence can be shut down before it has a chance to get started.
At the weekend there were estimated to be over 6,000 people at these two events. Of all those people I cannot doubt that some were children whose parents knew what was happening. There were adults there who understood, but chose to ignore, the seriousness of their actions. My message to all of these people whether attending, or turning a ‘blind-eye’ is very clear, don’t bother.
