This past Saturday, police and an air ambulance rushed to a call a fight occurring at the Hainault Country Forest Park where the Garage Nation Festival was taking place. It is reported that the brawl erupted in the VIP section, with knives being drawn. Police have confirmed that four men have been stabbed, two men aged 22-26 needing to be airlifted to the hospital, while the other two were treated on scene.
Even more horrific, police have confirmed that other festival goers that frantically escaped through the main entrance had “stab and slash” wounds. Further investigating will be required to determine the cause and target the stabbing. A spokesman from Garage Nation’s promoters said, ““We run a strict four-stage policy search regime. The security was procured and agreed in line with the planning that has been ongoing for 12 months.”
Eye witness, Mel Dee, described how she saw one the men being attacked from behind when speaking with the BBC:
“We saw him go towards someone in quite an aggressive manner. Then he jolted back,” she said.
“They’d slit his back, slashed him. It was very deep, he was fuming.”
“All a sudden he’d ran towards whoever else it was and soon there were 15 them. Other knives were pulled out,” The 21-year-old added.
“I could see people punching – arms flying everywhere.”
Further on, Ms. Dee commented how the security at Garage Nation was “dreadful” and that other festivals were much more strict. “They had a lack security on the gate to get people through. They said, ‘Can we check your bag?’ and they got us to unzip our bags but they didn’t search properly before letting us through” (Mel Dee).
London Metropolitan Police have faced at least 80 knife murders this year alone, with large events always a concern. With about 15,000 people at the festival, police are counting on eye witness’ who saw the attackers. Officers are continuing their search for the attackers with no arrests made at the moment.
