We Spoke to the Ravers Who Battled Police in a Field in Lincolnshire Last Weekend

Last weekend around a thousand people made their way to Twyfood Woods — somewhere in the middle of nowhere off the A1 — for a rave. Only, as the sun slowly started to rise on a torn-up abandoned airstrip in the middle of the forest, everything began to fall apart. Police were marching on the soundsystems, bottles were falling from the sky and bodies were hitting the floor.

Footage by Chris Shaw.

UKTek are a free party community based in Britain, organising underground parties (normally on bank holidays) in secret, secluded locations. As you'd expect, the event being shutdown by police hit the news during the following week. Various outlets from Mixmag to regional newspapers picked up on the altercations between the police and the ravers. VICE have already spoken to two revellers still squatting in the forest, waiting for the police to release their van.

Reports also included a string of Youtube videos, uploaded shortly after the event. They painted an altogether different image to the one that was being plastered across the papers. Yes there were bottles being flung about, but there were also rows of officers in full riot gear, as though closing in on a siege.

The majority of reports picked up on the fact that the arrest rate had been unusually high (43 people) as well as the number of police officers that had been injured – also alarmingly high at 21. UKTek has a historically complicated relationship with the law, with illegal raves suffering the same fate in 2008 and 2010, yet something about last weekend's event seemed heightened. The number of injured and arrested indicated the situation must have escalated beyond the mere shutting down of a party.

By chasing up some of the accounts where the videos had come from, THUMP were able to get in touch with some of the UKTek members who'd been in attendance for the bank holiday rave. We spoke to Matt, who was at last weekend's rave, and has since started a Facebook group in an attempt to organise responses to what he feels was unreasonably aggressive behaviour from the police.

"At about 1:00am we arrived at the party, but could only hear one sound system working, and a police helicopter was in the air with a spotlight shining down on all of us as we walked down the airstrip. We got to the main gathering of sound systems and we were greeted with about 20 riot vans and about 60 officers in full riot gear in front of the speakers," he tells me.

"A few ravers decided it would be a great idea to start chucking things at the police. Bear in mind that the reports say 200 out of the 1000 revelers, which isn't true, I saw about 20 dickheads in total chucking stuff. This just gave the police a reason to retaliate, which I believe is completely fine."

The police continued to shutdown soundsystems into the night, meaning by the time the sun had risen that morning there was only one left. "This is when the police started moving in," Matt says. "A wall of riot officers lined up and started advancing. The owner of the soundsystem was on the microphone, telling everyone not to fight the police."

"I saw a 16 year old girl who was just stood there get a shield to her face, my friend Liam was also blinded after an officer hit him in the face with a baton – he's now in hospital having been rushed to A&E because of the buildup of pressure in his eye."

"The next attack I saw really shocked me. As the police were coming in to seize the generator, everyone crowded round it. I saw one officer floor someone who literally did nothing, he was just watching. The officer started battering this man, then five other officers ran over and joined in. I watched the guy get beaten unconscious and stop moving, yet the police carried on hitting him."

It is important to remember that these are simply the accounts of ravers, but equally the scale of arrests, the number of police, and the innumerable accounts and photos of injury suggests violence was certainly two-way — the videos also suggest that the large portion of the revelers wanted to remain peaceful.

Matt's Facebook group is full of similar anecdotes. People being "smashed in the eye" as they stood and watched, or being kicked while curled up in fetal position on the floor. The anger in the community is real, not only at the violence, but also at how news reports have followed a linear story of violent party-goers turning on police. "I find it very very wrong how the news reports are saying how we're all awful individuals and we litter and are good for nothing, yet they don't explain the other side of the story." Matt was also keen to remind me that UKTek raves also involve a pre-planned clean up process that was made impossible by the ferocity of the shutdown.

THUMP spoke to another raver from the South West, who wished to remain anonymous, but also verified the clashes with police in Lincolnshire were notably bad. "I've been going to raves for more than 15 years and I've never seen anything like it – it was chaos. People were approaching them [police] peacefully, trying to communicate and they were getting battered."

He did also make a point of registering shifts in UKTek culture that may well have contributed to the heightened animosity, citing a change from a "hippy ethos", to a younger more politically charged crowd who are now attending the events. "There are a lot more kids coming from big cities who want their voices to be heard. It's great to have them and they are good people, but in a situation like we had it means they are more like to protest and get aggressive."

Ultimately this comes down to claims against counter-claims, creating a muddy conclusion as to who was in the wrong. Surely though, the amount of unreported police violence does merit challenging the current narrative of last week's UKTek, and free party culture as a whole, in the mainstream media. Headlines describe the ravers as 'yobs' and are followed by comment threads full of vitriol for the community. In one slightly bizarre jingoistic slant, there has even been a letter published in the Grantham Journal diminishing the community of a rave in comparison to the unity felt by soldiers during World War II.

A rave's a rave, and like it or not, throwing an all night free party with no license is illegal. However the outcome of this shutdown clearly demonstrates that the police need a new approach. Equally, the UKTek community clearly have work to do within their own ranks, clarifying that throwing bottles or otherwise aggravating the police only incites and justifies further violence.

It is worth noting that FrenchTek – the movement that inspired the UK incarnation — has a working relationship with the law. Lines of communication between police and organisers are open, allowing for the events to continue safely. Based on the accounts of violence both told to us, and detailed on the Facebook group, the UK still has a mountain to climb.

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