Police and organisers have hailed this weekend’s Goodwood Revival ‘the best yet’ with arrests down markedly on last year’s event, especially for violent crime and murder.
A spokesman for Sussex police said the event began quietly on Friday with just five arrests for assault, 16 for knife attacks and 103 for drug offences including 28 for dealing mephedrone or ‘meow meow’ during a performance by barber’s shop quartet Three Plus One.
Saturday was said to be equally peaceful, save for 12 incidences of looting and a brutal robbery that injured nine in the area adjacent to the Pimm’s tent, whilst Sunday was marred only by 19 arrests for grievous bodily harm and a vicious gun battle between two rivals gangs which left three dead and 21 wounded just before the start of the St Mary’s Cup race for racing saloon cars from between 1950-59.
Attacks on police officers were also down with just 46 across the whole weekend and the total would have been even lower but for a brutal riot that broke out just before Saturday’s Chichester Cup for rear-engined junior formula racing cars built before 1964.
Despite these incidents, police praised organisers for working hard to make the event safer and noted that some areas of the Revival site were ‘much safer’ this year with ‘noticeably fewer’ crack whores and the removal of the meth squat immediately adjacent to the Barrington & Cresby thornproof tweed stand.
Also on a positive note, numbers were up when it came to on-site refreshments as visitors guzzled their way through over 600,000 litres of strong lager and 750,000 bottles of WKD, the only stats to rise significantly over last year’s event aside from those for muggings and arson!
