Police a success!
Monday, 29 Jun, 2009 - 14:27
Chief Superintendent Kay Wozniak, On-site commander for Glastonbury Festival
As revellers slowly leave the site and the festival gets packed away for another year we’re now also busy taking down our police compound here at Worthy Farm and reviewing our operation on site. However the police operation won’t end until all festival-goers have left the site.
Our priority for today is to help get everyone off the site safely and as quickly as possible and we’re working closely with Glastonbury Festivals Ltd to ensure the traffic flows freely. A number of festival-goers left the site yesterday evening but this morning we had around 60 to 70 per cent still left to leave so today will prove busy.
For the second year running we have had a Safer Stronger Neighbourhood team on site interacting directly with festival-goers, dishing out crime prevention advice as well as lots of great freebies to help keep people’s stuff secure. This year though we increased that operation with additional special constables who have done a great job.
We’re really pleased with this year’s police operation at Glastonbury Festival, crime is down from last year with a specific decrease in theft from tents and mobile phone crime, which were the areas we were hit hard in last year. But in addition to that the police working on site have been really well received, they’ve worked hard, helped to make sure the festival was a safe environment and have also entered into the festival spirit: we’ve had a lot of great feedback from the festival community!
Road policing unit busy planning for festival traffic exit
Sunday, 28 Jun, 2009 - 16:35
Sergeant Steve Bell, from the Road Policing Unit working on the off-site traffic management plan at Glastonbury.
I’ll be working down here today and tomorrow working in conjunction with Glastonbury Festival’s Ltd on the traffic plan to get people off site. I got on site early this morning, around 5am and will probably be here until around 5 or 6pm and will probably get here around the same time tomorrow but I do expect to stay much later!
Today we’ve been out looking at all the routes, making sure everything is okay, briefing the officers that will be working so they know the traffic plan, going round making sure the signs are all in place to divert people.
We have around 50,000 set to leave the site tomorrow so it’s going to take a long time to clear the site and people could be extremely delayed so we’re telling people to make sure they have plenty of water with them and to have a sense of humour!
We’re asking people not to use their sat navs tomorrow but instead to follow the instructions of the marshals and police officers helping them to get off site as well as the signs that are directing them with the best routes.
Coming into the festival the roads were obviously busy but people all arrive at different times, whereas at the end of the event everyone wants to get out at the same time so it can be challenging but hopefully because people have been to the festival and had a good time so will be in high spirits!
Because traffic is moving slowly there shouldn’t be any accidents, although saying that I would urge people to be careful - I’ve previously seen people get their toes run over because they are walking close to the cars.
To avoid the traffic people may be considering leaving the site tonight but if they don’t drive when too tired and don’t drink and drive!
Officers put in pedal power to patrol the festival site
Saturday, 27 Jun, 2009 - 17:20
Sergeant Mark Nicholson, from the cycle team
We have two cycle teams this year – both made up for 6 officers. We start at 11am with a briefing and get out on the bikes at around 11.30am and we finish around 6.15pm before the second team head out in the evening. We have an extra team on duty this year because it was such a success last year we decided to expand it and the organisers have paid for the equipment and bikes.
It can be hard-going cycling through the mud and the crowds and I’m sure we’re all going to leave here with far firmer thighs – it’s a better work out than spinning! But seriously, having officers out on bikes is a great way of having a really visible police presence throughout the site as well as a quicker way of getting to any incidents.
The bikes can often be a quicker way to get around the site than in cars because you can weave in and out and access the more direct routes to the areas where the crime is occurring.
We’ve been out on patrol since the festival opened and have been interacting really well with festival-goers, handing out the crime prevention goodies, advice and tips but we’ve also made some good arrests. We’ve had several seizures of cannabis as well as bought in a group trying to supply nitrous oxide.
People love to see the bikes though and have been coming up to us asking for our photos and wanting to chat to us. As well as festival-goers we’ve also been lucky enough to meet a few celebrities while out on patrol and have today chatted to Franz Ferdinand and Jamie Cullum. My wife listened to Jamie Cullum when she was pregnant and I told him this so he sent her his best wishes, which was kind.
Over the last few days we’ve been getting among the tents and chatting to people about keeping their belongings safe and targeting the areas where extra patrols are needed.
It’s great to work at Glastonbury, seeing everyone pull together to make the site as safe as possible.
Special Constables Promote Crime Prevention at Glastonbury Festival
Saturday, 27 Jun, 2009 - 15:29
Kelly MacBryde and Samantha Cummings, working as special constables at Glastonbury Festival as part of the SSN team
This is our first Glastonbury working as Special Constables. We have worked three shifts over the last few days and our main priority has been to engage with the public, speaking to them about crime reduction. 90 per cent of our time is focussed on this as well as making our presence known so that people feel safe.
We spent the majority of Thursday on the front gate where thousands of festival goers were passing. We have been provided with loads of crime-prevention freebies, including torches, lanyards and sani-pens to give out – we managed to hand out lots of these and people were very willing to stop and talk to us.
We have been continually stopped by people and have been asked for directions for facilities across the site like the medical tent the ‘nicer’ toilets!
The Safer, Stronger Neighbourhoods team, which we are part of, have been patrolling the campsite a lot of the time handing out crime prevention messages, as well as in the Family Camp, handing out Neighbourhood Watch flags. We have walked so far our feet are absolutely killing us, and there is so much mud everywhere despite the nice weather!
At various information points across the site, we have been holding Beat Surgeries. These are held in four different places including Greenpeace, Meeting Point, Pyramid and Other at 11am and 4pm every day. This has had such a positive effect. So many people have approached us and they are all so friendly.
It is surprising how many festival goers don’t know about the free lockups, which can be used to store everything from ipods to wheelbarrows! These are open 24 hours a day and can be used for as short or as long a period as needed.
We have dealt with various medical emergencies including a broken ankle, a severe asthma attack and somebody who had overdosed on recreational drugs. This highlights the dangers of drug use, particularly in a hot, outdoor environment where it is easy to dehydrate.
In all cases of emergency, we have worked closely with the security teams, who have helped to clear the area and get in touch with medics. We have also worked with security so as direct the flow of people traffic in very congested areas such as the bridge between the Pyramid stage and Other stage.
We’ve been really well received here especially when people find out we’re Specials and so work here voluntarily. There is such a great atmosphere!
Mounted officers out and about at Glastonbury
Friday, 26 Jun, 2009 - 17:26
PC Laura Aberdeen from the Mounted and Dog Section at Glastonbury
I have been coming to Glastonbury for five years, but I have always been on duty as a mounted officer so I don’t know what it’s like on foot. Although – I am glad I don’t have to wade through that mud! The horses do get very muddy, but they get hosed down by the groom when they get back!
We can be out for four or five hours and we cover quite a few miles before we come back for a break. We bring them to the stables, give them some food and a rest before taking them out again. We have got officers on early and late shifts so there are mounted patrols throughout the day - from 11am to 11pm.
We begin the morning with a briefing session where we are allocated areas to focus on once we have identified where there’s a need for additional officers.
Ted in my team, yesterday identified a known offender from the briefing sheet while out on patrol and the extra height from being horseback enabled him to spot the offender in his vehicle. When they searched the vehicle there were several people inside who did not have legitimate tickets for the event. Some of them were found to be in possession of drugs and the vehicle had no insurance. This was a really good example of the horses aiding police work.
On horseback, you get a much better view than on foot patrol which is great for us, because we get to see so much more of the festival. But it also means that if an incident occurs, we are likely to see it first.
When we first bring the horses down to Glastonbury they can be a little bit excitable, but they soon settle in! They get tired quickly though because of the noise means that they can have difficulty sleeping but on the shifts they’re not working they get to catch up on their well earned rest and all the other officers tend to spoil them with apples.
It’s a great opportunity to interact with people when on the horse too. We get lot of people wanting to stroke the horses and talk to us. People in my team have had Neil Diamond and Robbie Williams come and pat their horses at previous Glastonbury’s, but I am yet to meet any celebrities!
I have been out and about today and it’s very muddy, so you can see people are a little more tired and downbeat than yesterday, though everybody seems to be having a great time despite the weather.
We’re looking forward to HorseCam going live today so people can see just what it’s like from our perspective. It’s a great idea because we really do get a considerably different view of the festival.
Drug testing operation to protect festival-goers
Thursday, 25 Jun, 2009 - 18:20
Pete Gray, Controlled Drugs and Chemical Liaison Officer for Glastonbury 2009
I’ve been working at Glastonbury for many years – I think this may be my 10th Glastonbury Festival now. I work in the drugs unit, based at the Bath and West Showground in Shepton Mallet, where we’ll be testing substances seized from anyone that is arrested or stopped for drug offences.
This is day two of the festival operation and we’ve been kept reasonably busy – there have been a number of people brought in for drug offences in the last couple of days and we’ve been testing a range of substances.
We’re able to test on site as we have a fully equipped laboratory with a forensic team and a toxicologist, who can provide advice on what they’re testing, which means we can get a message out to people about anything harmful that should be avoided.
Ordinarily we have to send drugs away to be tested when seized but because at Glastonbury we need to find out quickly what a substance is, in case it’s particularly dangerous and we need to make festival-goers as well as on-site medical staff aware, we set up a centre close to the festival site.
Our priority is to protect the public and minimise the health risk of drugs at the festival. There are people out there who are just out to make money from selling substances that can make people very ill. For example we seized what we thought was ecstasy but turned out to be caffeine tablets. We’ve also identified substances that turn out not to be what they were sold as that could be extremely harmful, possibly fatal.
We’ve mainly tested cannabis and ecstasy so far but we’ve also had some cocaine and some so-called ‘legal highs’. We target the ‘legal highs’ as they can often make people ill yet people think because they’ve been badged as ‘legal’ they must be harmless, but in fact it just means that they are untested so could still be dangerous. A lot of people were taken ill last year at the festival having taken these substances.
This year we also have some new equipment for the first time at the festival that allows us to detect trace quantities of a wide range of drugs, so we can identify much quicker what we’re dealing with.
As well as on-site testing facilities we also have drug referral workers who can talk to anyone who we bring into custody who may have a drugs problem.
Safer Stronger Neighbourhood teams greet festival-goers with freebies.
Wednesday, 24 Jun, 2009 - 15:26
Sergeant Max Puddy, heading up the Safer Stronger Neighbourhood’s Team (SSN) for Glastonbury 2009
As thousands of festival goers descend onto Worthy Farm for Glastonbury 2009, we’re all gearing up to cover over a hundred shifts throughout the weekend.
Officers from our Safer Stronger Neighbourhood team, which I’m heading up over the next few days, descended on the site on Tuesday and were greeted by downpours!
But the sun soon came out and our attentions turned to tackling crime and providing re-assurance to festival goers across the site. So don’t be alarmed if you see men in uniform patrolling the site we’re here to offer freebies, friendly faces and more importantly helpful hints and crime prevention advice.
Our role across the weekend is primarily to reduce crime on the site through a number of initiatives. These include the arrival of the new Neighbourhood Watch Scheme that will specifically target various camping areas. It’s hoped this scheme will encourage festival goers to unite in the fight against crime and help reduce the number of thefts from tents.
This is a major concern for my SSN team. Crime Stats from last year indicated there was rise in theft from tents especially over night and in the opening days of the festival when campers arrived to set up camp. This year we are here to help prevent and combat this rise, and inform festival goers about the best way to keep their belongings safe and secure.
On site there are numerous locations that have secure lock up’s that are free of charge that could prevent you from becoming a victim of crime, however if you do feel the need to carry expensive items like your iPod or mobile phone then register them on Immobilise (www.immobilise.com).
We would also encourage all visitors to the site to limit the amount of cash they carry. There are several cash machines on site at Worthy Farm and we would urge all festival goers to use them rather than keep a large amount of cash on them.
It’s one thing many festival goers forget but remember to secure your vehicle. Just take a quick look around and be sure your vehicle is not an obvious target for the opportunist thief.
Remember that throughout the weekend you’ll see friendly faces in uniform by the pedestrian’s entrances, and information points. We’ll be handing out freebies, including torches, lanyards to keep your keys and wallets safe, and hand sanitizer pens.
This is the first time I’ve worked on site at Glastonbury Festival and it’s also the first time for most of my team. The interaction between festival-goers and my team has been excellent. We’ve had a lot of compliments about our friendly approach to festival-goers and our ultimate is to make sure everyone enjoys themselves at a crime-free festival.
Come and chat to us and make use of the advice that could prevent you from being a victim of crime. Have a wonderful Glasto 09!
Custody Suites get built at Glastonbury
Tuesday, 23 Jun, 2009 - 16:59
Peter Tucker, from the Criminal Justice
Department, Criminal Justice lead responsible for setting up the temporary
custody centre for Glastonbury Festival.
We arrived at the Bath and West
Showground at Shepton Mallet yesterday morning to start setting up the
temporary custody facility for Glastonbury Festival in conjunction with
Operational Planning but we have all actually been preparing for months
purchasing all the equipment needed in custody to deal with every possible
eventuality and arranging for external agency support. The whole
plan for the implementation of the custody facility is a team effort bringing
various departments together working a single objective.
Every year we put in place the custody facility
at the Bath and West Showground so that any detainees
arrested at the festival can be processed efficiently through the Criminal
Justice system. The Crown Prosecutions Service (CPS) also sends a
team to site and a designated Pilton court is arranged in order to hear cases
over the weekend.
We travelled down here yesterday morning
(Monday, June 22) stopping at the stores at the police HQ on the way to collect
the custody equipment, resuscitation kits, suicide packs and forensic kits and so
on. A group also went to our Pilton store at Frome to collect other supplies
such as portable Image Capture Equipment, custody mattresses, etc - everything
we’ll need at the custody unit to make it compliant with the Safer
Detention and Handling of Persons in Police Custody guidelines.
Including the external agencies that have helped
us set up we’ve had about 25 people working on setting this centre up over the
last two days but we’ll have a far larger team working here over the festival.
The actual units have now all been built by Avon Transport Services – they
finished about 8pm yesterday and today we’ve had our Technology Services
installing the IT infrastructure and Micro-Vision putting in place the PA
system and the CCTV.
In the build up to the festival we’ve also
liaised with the force's custody healthcare provision which is supplied by
MEDACS a professional healthcare provider. The healthcare will be
available 24/7 throughout the festival to care for any detainees who may need
medical attention while in custody.
We open our doors for business at 10am on
Wednesday, June 24th, so we’ll be finished getting it all set up tonight, with
just the finishing touches to put in place tomorrow morning. But of course
we’ll then be dismantling it all on Tuesday June 30th – at the end of the
festival.
We anticipate, based on previous years
experience that around 200 people will pass through the custody facility over
the course of the event and there will be three custody teams in place to deal
with detainees as they arrive.
Crime is actually very low at Glastonbury –
so the majority of festival-goers probably won’t come anywhere near the custody
facility during Glastonbury – but for those few that do break the law
while at Glastonbury Festival – we are now well prepared to deal with
them.