About 200 mourners were found crammed under a single marquee to attend a funeral after reports of people flouting coronavirus restrictions.
Officers were summoned to the Castle Bromwich Hall Hotel, in Birmingham, after being informed that a large rally was being held on Friday. An angry resident described how loud music was making “the house shake”.
They told Birmingham Live: ‘I’ve called the police twice. They told me they got several calls. The music made the house vibrate and there was someone on the microphone regularly waking the pool.
When I got home from work early in the evening, cars were parked all over the adjacent roads and the grassy ledges. My wife told me the music started in the early afternoon, and finally got off at around 8pm. It is a disgrace.
A man, who had gone to the hotel for a meal, said the car park was full of people standing on the side of the road and claimed to have seen at least 40 people entering the marquee.
Under current UK coronavirus restrictions, funerals cannot hold more than 30 people, while social distancing must also be observed.
A West Midlands Police spokesperson said: ‘We attended reports of a large gathering of nearly 200 people at the Castle Bromwich Hall Hotel, Chester Street, on Friday evening, September 25th.
Officers were notified that it was a funeral. We joined the gathering, as a reminder that government guidelines apply to funerals, and the numbers are sparse.
A company spokesman confirmed that the employee who authorized the event had since left the hotel.
And they continued, ‘It was a surprise to us just as it did to everyone else. Obviously, we are apologizing on behalf of the hotel, but we were not aware that this would happen. As of today, the employee who arranged the order is no longer working for us.
Contact our news team by emailing us at [email protected].
For more stories like this one, Check out our news page.
