Police bust birthday gathering of 30 Edge Hill Uni students in Ormskirk
More than ÂŁ17,000 in fines have been handed out.
Last updated 3rd Feb 2021
Police have broken up a house party in Ormskirk, where they found around 30 people gathered together in a blatant breach of the Covid-19 rules.
It happened on Wigan Road at around 2.45am on Sunday (January 31st) where a large group of Edge Hill University students had got together for someone's birthday.
"We were bored, we want to have fun"
Several people fled the property as police arrived - including some who escaped out of a window.
Bodycam footage reveals an officer questioning why people are in the house.
One party-goer says: “We’ve been bored, we want to have fun.”
The organiser of the party will be issued with a ÂŁ10,000 fixed penalty notice.
Later in the footage, a woman says: “How do you expect a 20-year-old girl to pay a £10,000 fine? “
A police officer replies: “Well it’s lockdown isn’t it. You should think about that before you threw the party.
“The rules are in place to stop people getting infected, to stop the disease being spread around everyone and people stop dying, that’s the point. But it’s ok, you have your party, that’s why there’s a fine.”
Officers also located nine of the people who had been at the event and they were all given an ÂŁ800 fixed penalty notice.
This was a result of the new law which came into force at the weekend - part of the Health Protection (Coronavirus) Regulations – which now allows officers to issue the increased fine to anybody attending a house party of 15 people or more.
Officers also arrested a man after an officer was shoved while speaking to party-goers.
Sam Taiwo, 23, of Bellhouse Road, Sheffield, has since been charged with assaulting a police officer and is due at Preston Magistrates’ Court on April 1st.
Supt Karen Edwards, of Lancashire Police, said: “This weekend new Coronavirus regulations were introduced, enabling police to hand out increased fines to those in attendance at larger house parties. Officers who attended the party in Ormskirk used these powers, and as a result several fixed penalty notices were given out.
“This party was a blatant breach of the current restrictions, which are in place to prevent the virus from spreading and to keep everybody safe. It is unbelievably selfish for anyone to believe they are exempt when so many law-abiding citizens have not seen their friends and family properly in almost a year. The people in attendance also gave no thought to the safety of the local community or the officers who had to attend to break up the gathering, not to mention the NHS which is under immense strain. It is also shocking that an officer reported being assaulted while dealing with the aftermath of the event.
“While we are continuing to spend most of our time dealing with crime and keeping people safe, we must stress that incidents like this take us away from that and take up officers’ valuable time. We have always taken a proportionate approach to breaches of the regulations – educating, explaining and engaging first, with enforcement as a last resort - but when people blatantly break the rules, as with this party, we have to take it seriously and take a firmer approach.
“As always, we would like to say a huge thankyou to those who are following the law and are doing their bit to keep everybody safe. We all want lockdown to end, and for normality to resume, and we are grateful to the majority who are working with us to make that happen.”
Over the course of the weekend we received a total of 517 calls about Covid-19 breaches across the county, and 181 tickets were issued. The majority of these incidents were house parties, checks on behalf of the Border Agency (for example, on people who have not self-isolated after arriving in the UK from abroad) and businesses not complying with the regulations.
Temporary Chief Inspector for West Lancashire, Chris Abbott: “We have a tactical policing plan in place with additional officers who will be proactive in dealing with breaches of covid legislation. We will continue to enforce any breaches and work closely with our partners to take appropriate action.”
A spokesperson for Edge Hill University said: “We are fully co-operating and working closely with the police to establish the details. This is completely unacceptable behaviour and we will be taking appropriate action in line with our disciplinary procedures. We cannot pre-empt the outcome of these investigations or predict any final sanctions that might be imposed, however the University is able to exclude students in the most serious cases.”