Manchester Police have spoken out following arrests at Oasis’ Heaton Park gigs over the weekend.
The Gallagher brothers were back in their hometown playing to 80,000 fans a night. It has now been revealed the gigs resulted in 15 arrests across Friday and Saturday – six at the first gig and nine on the second.
On Saturday night, six people – five men and a woman in three separate incidents – were arrested on suspicion of fraud after attempting to access the venue with fake accreditation. A further arrest was made of a man on suspicion of assaulting a member of security staff.
Two more men were arrested on suspicion of assault, one for section 18 – also known as “wounding with intent” or “grievous bodily harm with intent” – inside the venue and one for section 47 – also known as Actual Bodily Harm (ABH)- outside.
A section 34 Dispersal Order was in place for the concerts, allowing officers to direct individuals to leave a specified area and not return for a period of up to 48 hours to reduce anti-social behaviour and its impact on the community.
Assistant Chief Constable Matt Boyle said: “We have been planning for these events for several months, working with partners and the organisers to make sure everyone can enjoy the concerts safely. To that end, I’m pleased to say that the first two Oasis homecoming events have been a success.
“What has been especially pleasing is how more than 100,000 people have enjoyed these iconic events safely and without trouble.
“We will have a highly visible presence in and around Heaton Park, and across the city, to ensure the next three events continue to pass safely.
“A number of people without tickets attempted to gain entry through a perimeter gate on Saturday night but failed to do so.
“We continue to support the event organisers and the local authority with their plans preventing any unauthorised access to the arena site.
“While arrests have thankfully been minimal, we have had to take some suspects to custody, including one after an alleged assault on a steward on Saturday night. We will not tolerate any abuse of anyone doing their job.
“On Friday night we also dealt with a number of breaches of airspace restrictions involving drones where our officers seized five drones and spoke to two other pilots.
“We continue to have airspace restrictions in place on the nights of the concerts and anyone found breaching the one-and-a-half-mile restriction zone could face prosecution.”
Source: Mirror
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