Christmas lights terror: Families tell of crush
crush at lights
Sam Brown had taken her 13 year-old daughter Shaiya to see her favourite band JLS.
“It was supposed to be a fun day out for her,” she said. “Shaiya loves JLS. But when the boys finished performing, it went crazy.
“People were throwing bottles at the stage and pushing and shoving us against the railings.
“I had to get her out of there – it was scary.”
The 33 year-old from Ladywood said she saw groups of teenagers forcing their way towards the stage: “A line of older kids linked arms and just barged towards the stage, knocking smaller ones out of the way. They didn’t care who was in front of them.”
Terrified Sadie Kidmore, 15, from Tamworth said she was watching JLS when a fight broke out.
“There was a fight next to me and people were hurt,” she said.
Her friend Kirsty Battle, 16, added: “It’s been badly organised. They put no barriers at the front of the stage to stop people pushing forwards.
“The entrance to Millennium Point was being used as a makeshift triage area for treating casualties, including those taken out on stretchers.”
Ambulance staff were seen trying to calm down a shaken teenager who had been hurt in the crowd, and a young boy who had been punched.
An announcement was made at around 3pm, shortly before dance act Calvin Harris was due to sing his hit songs. Crowds were told the concert was cancelled because of “health and safety” reasons.
A group of five friends from Tamworth was also caught in the middle of the chaos.
Angry
“We could see bottles being thrown at the stage. There were blown-up condoms being thrown as well,” said Natalie Ricketts. “When it was cancelled, a lot of people started booing.
“They got angry because they’d been waiting in the rain for a long time.”
Friend Lucy Adney, said she had been surrounded by a sea of frustrated people.
“Instead of leaving the grounds, more bottles were being thrown at the stage and people were shouting,” she said. “I could understand why the crowd was angry. We only got to see one act. It seemed like a waste of time.”
Shirelle Senior, from Wolverhampton, said: “A lot of people were being turned away and loads were still hanging around by the fences. It was a right mess and left a lot of people disppointed.”
One of the security guards standing by the outer fences said: “There were too many people in the venue – far more than we expected. There were far too many people getting squashed at the front.
“A lot of things were going on. We could not control the situation and it had to be cancelled before someone got seriously hurt.”
Security staff said there had been concerns about the capacity of the venue and the lack of a ticketing system to monitor how many people would actually attend.
A security source said: “Tickets should have been issued and there should have been better security checks in place. It was a free gig with a lot of stars on the line-up. More should have been done to anticipate any trouble.”
The Lord Mayor of Birmingham, Councillor Michael Wilkes, was due to switch on the lights with the Sugababes, Pixie Lott and Taio Cruz.
But, organisers said the switch-on would now be a low-key event today.
A council spokesman blamed the chaos on the use of substitute fencing that had to be bought in at the last minute to replace the planned high steel fences because of the bad weather conditions and the power of the wind.
She said that security had been unable to stop people breaching the low fencing.
“The use of mesh fencing was not ideal,” she explained. “Once that had been breached, it left everyone vulnerable. We knew we only had capacity inside the area for 20,000 people.”
She added that the council had made the right decision to cancel the event.
“There have been too many scenes when too many people have gone into a square and lots of people have been hurt.
“I believe we headed off something.”
What do you think? Were you there? Who is to blame? Let us know below...
