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Good afternoon, I wanted to provide an update of an incident involving an Unlicensed Music Event at an abandoned property within the old Argos store situated in Sandringham Road E8 within Dalston.
Overnight, residents reported an ongoing music event taking place at the disused Argos where music could be heard from two streets away. The council noise team received three reports in connection with this venue, and we received two calls from 0800 hours stating that a music event was still occurring causing disruption to residents, highlighting the impact the event was having on our communities. We estimated there to be around 100 people within the venue as a result of the information we received.
Based on this information and concern for the wellbeing of residents locally, Detective Superintendent Oliver Richter authorised police powers under Section 63 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 which gives officers the power to remove persons attending or preparing for a UME and seize sound equipment from the event. Within this process the Independent Advisory Group and Hackney Council Silver were consulted.
At around 1140 hours we attended the venue. The deployment of police resources included Emergency Response and Neighbourhood teams based out of Stoke Newington Police Station as well as colleagues from the MO7 Taskforce - Territorial Support Group. Additional resources were required in response to the information we had received regarding the numbers of persons attending. In addition to this, we knew that supervision of this incident was paramount, so I, as local neighbourhood Inspector as well as the Duty Inspector and duty Chief Inspector attended the scene.
The deployment resulted in 20 people being asked to leave the UME site within the building as well as a large quantity of sound equipment being seized (picture below). We also arrested a Male who was wanted by Westminster Magistrates Court for an offensive weapon offence where he had failed to attend court, recovered 3 stolen cycles, which we hope to restore to their owners today as well as a suspected stolen Blue Badge.
We recognise that several persons at this venue are protected by ‘Squatters Rights’ – those persons remain at the venue lawfully and were not part of the group asked to leave attending the UME. They remain at this venue.
Whilst on scene, residents approached our officers and personally thanked them for the response we provided.
We left the scene at around 1320 hours.
Kind Regards,
Dave
Dave Lamb
Inspector – Neighbourhoods 
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