Locals furious as nineties-style drug-fuelled parties make comeback in countryside
Sun man uncovers debauchery on an industrial scale, driven by open sale of cocaine, ecstasy and more
DANCE music booms out from five towering sound systems, echoing for miles off the hills surrounding the once peaceful rural setting.
Thousands of wild-eyed ravers dance furiously as the sun rises, their boundless energy provided by the drugs MDMA and cocaine, openly sold by dozens of dealers.
It sounds like a flashback to the underground raves of the Nineties. But this display of hedonism took place in a scenic corner of Mid Wales this Bank Holiday weekend.
The chaotic dance party was the latest example of the illegal party scene that is making a comeback in Britain’s countryside with little interference from under-pressure police who, say today’s ravers, often simply stand by and let the gatherings happen.
As one veteran raver told The Sun: “Nine times out of ten the police do nothing because they don’t have enough officers to stop the rave.
“They just park nearby and wait until everyone goes home, while we get on with the party.”
He was among up to 2,000 people who descended on the party, UKTek, which The Sun attended after picking up a series of coded clues.
The infamous Castlemorton rave in Worcestershire in 1992 was attended by 40,000 punters and led to the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, which effectively made such outdoor parties illegal.
Now promoters release just the postcode to those in the know, and only at the last minute via text or email, at which point ravers from across the country speed to the secret meeting point.
They are warned to keep the location off social media to stop the police discovering it.
Last month hundreds of families in Frome, Somerset, were kept awake by an all-night event which took cops eight hours to shut down.
UKTek is considered the biggest event in the illegal rave calendar and was slated to run from Saturday night until Monday evening but some die-hard ravers were still going strong yesterday.
The party has form for major disruption. Last year’s bash, held in Lincolnshire, ended in mass violence and 40 arrests when it was eventually closed by riot police.
After weeks of build-up and false location rumours, at 10pm on Saturday this year’s party details were released, instructing punters to head to the hills over Llanddewi Brefi, a village of 500 people in Ceredigion, Mid Wales made famous by Little Britain’s “Only gay in the village” sketch.
By the early hours of Sunday, as many as 2,000 ravers had gathered, parking along the country paths before flocking to stages pumping out such dance music styles as techno, psytrance, hard house and drum and bass.
Soon a thick fog of cannabis smoke rose from hundreds of joints, while ravers inhaled mind-altering nitrous oxide gas, also known as “hippy crack”, from balloons.
While many partygoers were from Wales or the West Country, others had come from Manchester, London, Leicester and Norfolk.
Most were in their early 20s though older faces, dreadlocked hippies and punks were also dotted among the crowds.
One group who were notable by their absence were the police.
One cop who was on patrol near the site told The Sun: “We’re aware of the event but you’d need hundreds of officers to close something of that size, and we don’t have those kinds of resources.
“Unless they start killing each other, we won’t get involved.”
With the police turning a blind eye, ravers loaded up on illegal substances.
The Sun was offered ketamine (£25), MDMA (£50), cocaine (£70), mephedrone (£15), and Silver Bar-branded ecstasy tablets (£10), as well as cannabis.
While there is no charge to attend these parties, organisers often take a cut of drug dealers’ profits.
Partygoers took LSD, the hallucinogen 2CB and even deadly crystal meth, openly racking white lines of various substances on their iPhone screens or hand-held mirrors before snorting them with rolled-up notes.
Punters staggered around with white circles of Class A drugs around their nostrils, eyes glassy and jaws locked tight from involuntary clenching.
Some were jammed against a wall of speakers, staring at them as if mesmerised.
At least ten dealers sold nitrous oxide from cylinders at £2 for a regular balloon of the gas, and £5 for a jumbo-sized balloon.
Well-spoken Ian, 22, from Cambridge, had brought £400 to buy drugs and had been drinking at the wheel of his sports car while driving to Wales.
He attempted to buy ketamine, another hallucinogen, while leaning out of his car window before he had even parked, later ranting: “I’ve already been up for three days, I just want to get f***ed-up and dance.”
Connie, 19, from Somerset, said: “There are loads of raves around where I live, but something huge like this only happens around once a year, so I don’t mind travelling for it.
“The vibe here is amazing. The hills are so beautiful, especially when you’re on drugs.”
Dreadlocked Ash, 25, from South London, sat smoking a joint next to an unconscious pal.
He said: “He was just drinking, and you can’t do an event like this on only booze. You need some sort of drug just to stay awake.
“Mind you, I’ve seen some people get into bad states at raves, taking too much MDMA or cocaine. Sometimes people start fitting on the ground, and there’s no way of getting an ambulance as there’s no phone signal or access to the site. It’s scary.”
James, 19, from Port Talbot in South Wales, was stuck at the event after his car got blocked in so he and his group had taken LSD to while away the hours.
He said: “This event won’t be shut down. People have parked so police can’t get on to the site and it’s too spread out for them to surround it.
“They were stopping people and searching vehicles for drugs on the way here and they’ll probably search cars on the way out as well. That’s about all they can do.”
A Dyfed-Powys Police spokesman said they were alerted to the rave on Saturday night, but due to the scale “a decision was made to prioritise disrupting and stopping entry of any further vehicles and people”.
He added that there had been drug-related arrests, with investigations continuing. Despite this, The Sun’s team arrived and left without even seeing cops on Sunday, while ravers were still arriving on Sunday morning.
Time to go home...collapsed party goer looking a bit worse for wear
Locals have been left furious. Community councillor Alan Leech, 72, said: “We don’t want these events here every Bank Holiday. There is no drinking water and no toilets. They have left all sorts of rubbish which someone else will have to move.”
As The Sun’s team prepared to leave late on Sunday morning, a police helicopter hovered overhead, and ravers hurled abuse.
Even so, the event is being allowed to peter out gradually over days and last night there were still more than a dozen people at the site.
This event may be nearly over. But for Britain’s resurgent underground rave scene, it seems the party is just getting restarted.