Riot police raided a 30th birthday barbecue because they thought the organiser, who had invited his friends via Facebook, was staging a rave.
Four police cars, a riot van and a helicopter moved in on Andrew Poole’s gathering which was taking place in a field owned by a friend.
The coach driver had invited 17 guests to an ‘event’ on his social networking page by private invitation and was about to light the barbecue when the gazebo suddenly started flapping wildly and the sound of chopper blades filled the air.
A police helicopter circled the field several times before four police cars and a riot van stormed into the field in a small village near Sowton, Devon.
Eight officers wearing camouflage trousers and body armour then jumped out and ordered the party to be shut down or everyone would be arrested.
Andrew, ofExeter, Devon, said: ‘It had started to rain so we had gone in under the gazebo. All of a sudden there was this noise in the sky – I honestly couldn’t believe it.
‘The thing then hovered over us for about 25 minutes, watching 15 people eat. They told us to take down the sound system and said everybody’s got to leave.
‘It was 4pm and we hadn’t even plugged the music in yet. We tried to reason with them, and even offered for them to take the power lead for the sound system, but they were having none of it.
‘It was on private land. We were nowhere near anyone. We weren’t even playing any music. What effectively the police did was come in and stop fifteen people eating burgers.’
Andrew had spent £800 for the hire of the generator, marquee and food. The guests arrived at 3pm but soon after a police helicopter generated a huge dust cloud which covered his BBQ in debris.
Andrew said: ‘The police had full-on camouflage trousers on and body-armour, it was ridiculous. There was also several plain-clothes officers as well.
‘I told them it was my 30th birthday. I said « this is a once in a lifetime event for me, please don’t ruin it ». But they kept on insisting I had been advertising it as an all-night rave on the internet.
‘But I’d created an event, and 17 people had confirmed as guests, I did put the times on it as « overnight » in case people wanted to sleep-over.
‘They were still banging on saying it was advertised on the internet. They wouldn’t accept it wasn’t a rave. It was in a completely isolated field.
‘We’d actually faced the speakers away from the village just in case nosy-neighbour types complained. But someone must have seen us putting up the marquee and phoned the police.’
A spokeswoman for Devon and Cornwall police said the helicopter was deployed for less that 20 minutes at a cost of around £200.
She said local residents were concerned due to previous raves having reportedly taken place in the area with loud music and traffic disruption into the early hours.
She said: ‘The decision to close down a rave or illegal music festival is not taken lightly.
‘On this occasion, we were extremely concerned how the event had been advertised on the internet as an all-night party and it was therefore necessary to take the appropriate steps.
‘Had it gone ahead, it is likely that far more of our resources would have been used to police the event and there would have been considerable disruption to neighbouring properties.
‘It was fortunate that the force helicopter was able to fly over the site as they were returning from another task.’