GMP forced to shut down more than 1,000 parties over Easter weekend

While for the most part the people of Greater Manchester have been following the lockdown measures, some people seem to think they don’t apply to them.

This was evident over the Easter Bank Holiday weekend, as Greater Manchester Police were called out to more than a thousand parties.

In total, GMP attended 1,008 reports of people having house parties and gatherings across the region, the Manchester Evening News has revealed.

According to the MEN, police were called to 222 reports on Easter Friday, 309 on Saturday, 386 on Easter Sunday and 91 on Bank Holiday Monday.

Chief Constable Ian Hopkins told the Manchester Evening News: “Generally, we are seeing pretty good levels of compliance and, I would suggest, social responsibility from people over the whole of Greater Manchester.

“Our message has been pretty clear, to stay at home and protect the NHS and save lives. That’s been the campaign. I actually think it’s too easy to talk about the numbers, particularly of deaths and the numbers who have the virus.”

Last week we reported that Greater Manchester Police were called to over a thousand reports of people breaking Covid-19 restrictions the weekend before Easter.

GMP pleaded with people in the region to do better over the Bank Holiday weekend, and to follow the social distancing and isolation measures – but now it looks like people didn’t listen.

The weekend of April 4th and 5th saw the police called to 1,132 incidents in total across Greater Manchester.

This included 494 house parties, 166 street parties, 173 park gatherings, 122 group gatherings for sporting activities, and 112 anti-social behaviour cases – shockingly, police say some of the house parties had bouncy castles, fireworks and even DJs.