Latest News

Love Parade, Organisers to Blame?

State authorities' preliminary investigation showed on Wednesday that the organizers of the music festival Love Parade in the German city Duisburg should bear the most blame for the fatal stampede which killed 21 people and injured more than 500 others last Saturday.
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Festival Republic Step Up Security.

Security will be stepped up at the Leeds Festival following two alleged rapes at Latitude.
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Nineteen Killed in German Festival Stampede

German prosecutors open an investigation on Sunday into a stampede which killed 19 people and injured 342 at the Love Parade techno music festival in the western city of Duisburg
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Working Time Directive Now Applies To Self - Employed Drivers

The European Parliament has voted down a European Commission plan to exempt self-employed drivers from the 2002 Working Time Directive.
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Police Use Scare Tactics To Stop Festival

ORGANISERS of a community festival, claim police used scare tactics to ensure it lost its licence – telling a council committee someone had died at the event.
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Night Club Sign Clouts Passer-By

A woman walking along Plymouth's Union Street on Saturday was struck and injured by a large signboard that had detached from a nightclub frontage. She was knocked unconscious and taken to hospital where she was treated for a head injury.
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A worrying trend of police intervention in Licensing?

What do Moonfest 2008, The Big Green Gathering 2009, the Strawberry Fayre in 2010 Cambridge and now this year’s Glade Festival all have in common? Well, they have all been cancelled after intervention by the police in the licensing process – sometimes (but not always) against the wishes of local residents and even the licensing authority.
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Eight arrested as weekend rave ends in Pembrokeshire

Eight arrests have been made and £100,00 worth of sound equipment seized after a weekend rave which drew up to 2,500 people to a clifftop.
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Pembrokeshire Community Festival Looses License

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Malcolm McLarnen - possible asbestos death?

Former Sex Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren, who died last week from cancer, may have come into contact with the deadly material while ripping down the ceiling of Sex, his infamous clothes store on London’s King’s Road.
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Injuries at Elton John Venue

Three workers have been injured after part of a stage being set up for a concert by Sir Elton John collapsed.

The large structure was being built at the Chichen Itza ruins in Mexico when the lighting rig gave way and toppled over.

Two of the workers were treated for slight injuries, while the third suffered a broken leg.

The singer was not present when the incident occurred and the concert will go ahead this weekend as planned, organisers said.
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No Strawberry Fair for 2010

Strawberry Fair have cancelled this year's event after police challenged the granting of a licence by the city council.

They said the effort needed to ensure an alcohol licence for the event would take up too much volunteers' time.

Cambridgeshire Police made the appeal to question "the legal position in the licensing magistrates' court".
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Girlfriend speaks out over safety after death in Serbia

THE girlfriend of a 22-year-old man who fell 40ft to his death while attending a music festival has voiced her concerns about safety at the event.

Jon Fisk, of Bishopsteignton, Shoebury, died in July last year while attending a music festival with university friends in Serbia.

An inquest heard the popular University of Hull graduate fell between 35 and 40ft off a sheer drop on to a concrete path while at the Exit music festival, at Petrovaradin fortress in Novi Sad.
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Former Landlord fined for Fire Safety Infringements

A former pub landlord has been ordered to pay £16,015 in fines and costs after pleading guilty to serious breaches of fire safety legislation following a prosecution brought by the London Fire Brigade.

The manager of the Star Public House also pleaded guilty at Uxbridge magistrates court on 7 December 2009 to two breaches of the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order. He was ordered to pay £1,015 in fines and costs.

The former landlord, Mr Bhupinder Singh Mann, admitted guilt on 16 contraventions of the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005.
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Ocean Colour Scene fans left in the dark after power cut

ANGRY fans were left waiting for hours after a power cut forced the Picture House to cancel the long-awaited Ocean Colour Scene concert last night.

The music venue announced today that the band would play a special gig on Monday, 8 March for fans with tickets to last night's cancelled event.

Managers blamed Scottish Power for the last-minute cancellation, after a partial power cut plunged the auditorium into darkness at 7:30pm.

It was left running on emergency lighting just half an hour after the doors opened. But hundreds of fans were left fuming for two hours and twenty minutes before they learned the performance would not go ahead.
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Charges over New Year's Eve Tragedy

Four people have been formally charged over a New Year's Eve nightclub fire in Bangkok that left 67 people dead.

More than 200 people, including tourists from Australia, Britain and France, were injured in the Santika club blaze in the early hours of 2009.

Three Santika employees and the lead singer of the band on stage when the fire broke out have been charged with various counts of gross negligence.

Thai police have been criticised for the slow pace of their investigation.

Band singer Saravuth Ariya has been charged with setting off the fireworks that police believe sparked the blaze.
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Warning to over-enthusiastic giggers, as teenager remains in critical condition

THE mother of a teenager almost killed in a heavy-metal mosh pit has warned other parents of how a fun night out could end in tragedy.

Jamie Craig went into cardiac arrest after being hit in the chest during a concert at Blacktown Masonic Hall in Sydney on December 19. He was on life support for eight days.

Teens who attended the concert have flooded Facebook and MySpace to speculate on how the 16-year-old's injuries occurred, with Blacktown detectives now investigating claims Jamie was deliberately kicked by another reveller wearing steel-capped boots.

The Green Valley teen remains in Blacktown Hospital's intensive care unit and, while doctors have been pleased with his steady progress so far, they have warned his parents of a long and difficult road ahead.
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Hillborough documents to finally be made public

Seven members of a panel which will scrutinize files relating to the Hillsborough tragedy have been named.

It will be chaired by the Bishop of Liverpool and include academic criminologist Professor Phil Scraton and BBC journalist Peter Sissons.

The panel will spend two years reading thousands of documents detailing the events which led to the 1989 disaster in which 96 Liverpool fans died.

They have been held by South Yorkshire Police for the past 20 years.
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Landmark ruling after mosh pit death

A New York appellate court has, for the first time, applied the doctrine of primary assumption of the risk to a claim of injury sustained in or in the vicinity of a mosh pit. HRRV represented the victorious defendant, BB King Blues Club.

In Schoneboom v. BB King Blues Club, 2009 N.Y. Slip Op 08160 (November 12, 2009), the Appellate Division, First Department held that a club patron was barred by the doctrine of primary assumption of the risk from seeking damages for injuries suffered when an identified person in a group of slam dancers slammed into him.

The court held that “after observing the open and obvious slam dancing from a safe vantage point, and fully appreciating the risk of colliding with a slam dancer, plaintiff nonetheless elected to place himself in close proximity to that activity, thereby assuming the risk that resulted in his injuries.”
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Firework production suspended after workers die

A Chinese province halted all fireworks production following a factory explosion that killed nine people, official media has reported.

The order from the Shaanxi government followed a blast at the Xinping Firecrackers Co., where workers were rushing to fill orders for the Lunar New Year festival, the Xinhua News Agency said.

The explosion tore through seven workshops in Shaanxi's Pucheng county where more than 100 workers were laboring in cramped conditions, it said.
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Serious injury at Prodigy concert

A 24-year-old man was seriously injured after falling from a balcony during a music concert in Dundee.

Tayside police were called to Caird Hall where dance band The Prodigy were playing a sold-out gig.

Ambulance and police attended at 2200 GMT on Friday and the man, from Angus, was taken to Ninewells Hospital, where his condition is described as serious.
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