The Met Police has confirmed that it shut down a total of 58 unlicensed music events and parties which were in breach of Tier 4 regulations last night (31st Jan).
A total of 217 people were issued fixed penalty fines, while five people have been reported for consideration for a possible £10,000 fine for organising large gatherings of people.
Four people were arrested for breaching COVID 19 regulations.
The Met also confirmed that officers were called to a multiple stabbing in Edgware Road at around 00:32hrs. When officers arrived on the scene, they found two males, aged 18 and 19, with stab injuries.
A 17-year-old girl was also found with a severe head injury having been struck with a glass bottle. One person was arrested.
The incident is suspected to be linked to reports of a large number of people gathered at a property in Connaught Street that was dispersed by police.
Commander Paul Brogden said:
“In all, the vast majority of Londoners complied with the Covid regulations that are in place to protect themselves and their loved ones, and we’re grateful to those people. The public are all too aware that Tier 4 restrictions have been put in place to reduce the spread of the virus and to protect the NHS.
“We did attend a number of calls to parties and unlicensed events across London, including one where two people were stabbed. My colleagues in the local command unit continue to investigate.
“Our enforcement activity will continue. If people insist on gathering and breaching regulations, then officers will attend and encourage people to disperse. Where necessary, enforcement action, including fines starting at £100 and working their way up to £10,000, will be considered.
“We are still dealing with the stark reality of fighting a deadly virus. I urge Londoners to continue to keep themselves and their families safe by staying at home.”
Essex Police (featured image credit) also confirmed that they had handed out over £18,000 in organiser fines and fixed penalty notices.
Hundreds of people across the county attended various unlicensed events, in direct breach of coronavirus restrictions.
Essex Police Assistant Chief Constable Andy Prophet said:
“I’d like to firstly thank everyone across Essex who stayed at home and did the right thing last night.
“You’re protecting our NHS, and you’ve allowed us to attend a large number of callouts across the county, including arresting three people on suspicion of murder in Rayleigh following the tragic death of a man in Worcester Road.
“Unfortunately, there were others who decided to blatantly flout the coronavirus rules and regulations and, ultimately, they decided that partying was more important than protecting other people.
“We’ve seized their equipment, arrested five people, and issued a large number of fines to those who think this behaviour is acceptable.
“We need you to keep yourselves, other people, and the NHS, safe. Thank you again to everyone who spent their New Year’s Eve in a responsible, legal, way. “Stay safe, Essex.”
In Sussex, covering the period from 6pm on Thursday (31 December) to 3am on Friday (1 January), a total of 81 Fixed Penalty Notices (FPNs) were issued by police officers.
Out of the total number, 66 FPNs were issued in Brighton and Hove, nine in West Sussex and six in East Sussex.
The FPNs ranged from outdoor gatherings of groups in public spaces, to private parties, and people travelling from outside the area into the county.
Several tickets were issued to groups gathering on Brighton beach in breach of the restrictions.
Five tickets were issued to a group stopped in a car from London who claimed they were in Brighton to collect a takeaway.
Members of the public called police to a house party in High Street, Uckfield at 11.50pm where people repeatedly returned to an address despite being warned by officers.
The occupant of the address was issued a fine.
During the same period – from 6pm to 3am – a total of 44 arrests were made across Sussex for offences which included public order, assault and drink driving.
The news comes as overworked and exhausted NHS staff continue to try to save as many lives as possible as COVID wards in the south east reach capacity during the second wave of COVID infections.
There have been some reports that patients in Essex, where a state of emergency was declared earlier in the week, might be transported to ICU wards in the north west of the country, although these reports have not been confirmed by EEAST or by local health officials.
Over the last 24 hours, over 1,000 people lost their lives to COVID.
Before you go...
We need your help. As former emergency services & armed forces personnel, we pride ourselves on bringing you important, fast-moving and breaking news stories & videos which are free from the negative bias which is often directed at the emergency services & NHS by some sections of the mainstream media.
One of the reasons we started 'Emergency Services News' back in 2018 was because we became tired of reading badly informed stories about the emergency services & NHS which seemed only ever to highlight negative aspects of the job.
We want to be the unheard voice of the remarkable men and women who serve in the emergency services, NHS and armed forces. And with around 500k page views each month, we are getting there!
As income from ads, the mainstay source of income for most publishers, continues to decline; we need the help of you, our readers.
You can support emergency services news from as little as £1. It only takes a minute. Every contribution, however big or small, is vital for our future.
Please help us to continue to highlight the life-saving work of the emergency services, NHS and armed forces by becoming a supporter.
The nation was shut down in the spring and lo! Covid went away(ish). Covid is a nasty strain of flu and everybody knows that flu gets going in the autumn and really gets into its stride in winter. We also know that viurses mutate.
Sure enough, Covid has mutated and is on the run, just like all other strains of flu. Meanwhile, Wales shut down for a fortnight, the much lauded firebreak. It failed. The Tier system was introduced. It failed. The November lock down took place. It failed. A stricter Tier system was introduced. That failed too.
People are not stupid. They are relentlessly informed by the BBC that Covid related deaths are on the increase, thus proving that lock downs do not work and anyway, what precisely is a Covid related death. If you have Covid when you die, this does not mean that you died of Covid, merely with it. If you get killed by a bus, you die of bus, not Covid, the common cold, AIDS or indigestion. The figures have now become so corrupt, it is impossible to work out precisely what has happened and indeed what is happening going forwards.
Meanwhile, we are told that hospitals are at bursting point because of Covid. At this point, one would expect the Nightingale hospitals, created at vast expense, to swing into action. In the Spring, they remained empty and so were quietly packed up. They remain in storage, so obviously, while the hospitals are busy, they are by no means overwhelmed. If they are, then the government is negligent in not activating the Nightingale hospitals.
Those who generate the wealth to fund the NHS and everything else, largely the private sector (the public sector does not pay corporation tax) are stopped, started then stopped again. Yes, there is a furlough scheme for employees, but who is paying the overheads? The insurances, rent, rates, light and heat, tax liabilities, rental and leasing fees and so forth. Business is not like a light switch. It can be turned off at a flick, true, but starting it up again takes time. The forward order book is cancelled or postponed and takes a long time to re-start. The result is failed businesses and lost jobs.
Look around your community. Has the traffic stopped? No. It has barely slowed down. Are people staying at home? No. Public car parks are rammed full. Shutting down parties is easy. Shutting down the entire population voting with its feet is impossible and that tells you all you need to know.
The public has instinctively recognised that this policy is complete nonsense. You cannot get your hair cut, but your kid can go do school, a notorious breeding ground for bugs of all descriptions. Adults must wear masks, which achieve nothing, while kids do not. The public is not medically trained, but nor is it inexperienced or illogical. It recognises that kids can carry and spread Covid as easily as anybody else.
Meanwhile, we must look at the make up of SAGE. There is not a single virologist on the panel. It is made of statisticians and the full array of mental and sociological -ologists. Professor Neil Ferguson must be singled out here. He is the genius who predicted that 50,000 people would die of CJD as a result of the BSE issue in the succeeding 15 years. In fact, 178 perished and some of those were vegetarian. He started a massive, destructive scare in the mid ’90s based entirely on inaccurate modelling and has done exactly the same thing again now. The difference is that the data has been so completely corrupted as to render it unusable.
Einstein is reported as saying that repeating the same action over and over again and expecting a different outcome is a sign of insanity. He is right and the public knows it.