‘Thought I was gonna die, can’t lie’: Notting Hill Carnival revellers tell of their terror caught in crush that left ‘helpless’ police trapped alongside them activating their panic buttons – and leaving colleagues fearing ‘another Hillsborough’
Notting Hill Carnival revellers have told of their terror caught in a huge crush that left ‘helpless’ police trapped alongside them activating their panic buttons – and leaving colleagues fearing ‘another Hillsborough’.
Videos shared across social media from Monday, August 29 show an enormous crowd amassing on Ladbroke Grove that was swelling to dangerous levels.
At the scene, police officers were caught up in the chaos and left helpless, while desperate revellers were seen clambering over the railings to escape the impending crush.
The situation had reached such a critical point that the Territorial Support Group called in an emergency and warned they were ‘getting crushed to death’, the Times reports.
One reveller posted on social media: ‘I was right in the middle, thought I was gonna die. Can’t lie, just had to go with the flow of the crowd.’ Another wrote: ‘Almost died in this’. And a third added: ‘The police waited till it got that bad as we warned them to cut if off from one of the floats as the DJ stopped the music and asked for help and was ignored. To the point the public were screaming at the police to call for back-up. We were ignored.’
Chris Hobbs, a retired Metropolitan police officer, said his first reaction after witnessing the crush was to think of Hillsborough.
‘I saw police among it helpless. That’s the bigger problem than the violence – the potential for another Hillsborough’, he added.
The concerns come amid mass criticism of the festival after a chaotic weekend that saw more than 200 people arrested, 74 police officers injured and a 21-year-old man killed.
Amid the chaos of Monday’s crush, performers and DJ were tasked with calming the crowd as the ensemble continued to grow out of control.
One person took to Facebook to claim the police in attendance ignored the public’s cries for help.
Up to two million people attended the carnival over Sunday and Monday, and they also had to contend with a 48-hour bus strike in the capital.
The Metropolitan police are understood to have called up 6,000 officers for Saturday’s events and 7,000 for Monday – the date of the crush.
But the carnival was also once again marred by violence, with 21-year-old rapper Takayo Nembhard murdered on Ladbroke Grove on Monday evening.
He was one of seven stabbing victims at the festival, while 74 Metropolitan Police officers suffered injuries including broken arms, legs and minor knife wounds.
Two women police officers were sexually assaulted – with one of them grabbed around the neck and kissed and a second surrounded by a group of men.
Other officers admit they ‘dread’ working the three-day carnival when they’re expected to be on high alert throughout with radio alerts going off ‘constantly’.
Police said 209 arrests had been made at the carnival, including 46 for assault, 36 for possession of drugs and 33 for possession of an offensive weapon.
Ken Marsh, chairman of the Metropolitan Police Federation, said an officer had been ‘sexually assaulted by numerous males’ and called for the event to be scrapped.
He told LBC: ‘The tragedy to this is 98 per cent of people who go there are law-abiding and want to enjoy themselves, but there is an element, and I am fed up of no one talking about it, of people who go for one reason – to cause harm to others.
‘That is not stopping, has never stopped and we need to say enough is enough. We cannot have a situation where every year, the bank holiday weekend I discuss why there are so many of my colleagues seriously injured or assaulted.’
Roy Ramm, former Metropolitan Police commander of specialist operations, echoed his thoughts and said moving the event to a private venue would make policing easier while also generating revenue for the local community.
He said that senior police figures are reluctant to criticise the Caribbean celebration, which has been taking place on the streets of west London since the 1960s, because of a ‘nervousness’ of being deemed racist.
But Mr Ramm admitted that, even if the carnival was moved, ‘there are people who still want to be violent, to sell drugs and to mark their turf’.
He told MailOnline: ‘From a policing perspective, that [moving the carnival] is a much better situation. But it will be rejected by the community because of the view that carnivals should be held in the street.’