With 30 sound-systems and 200 DJs spread around the former Royal Mail depot in London, Scumoween was set to be the illegal rave to end them all. With an estimated 1,000 party people rolling up to the disused eight-storey building on Saturday night, it wasn’t long before nearby residents put a call in to the cops.

For the next 18 hours (the last Scumoween stragglers rolled out of the Depot after 4pm on Sunday), police and riot officers from the Territorial Support Group tried in vain to pull the plug. At one point on Sunday morning, dozens of police were forced out of the building by ravers throwing bottles and bricks. Eight people were arrested and three were taken to hospital, including a police officer with a minor head injury.

It was then decided that the party should be allowed to continue “under a watching brief” for fear of further confrontation. “We’re waiting for people to get tired and go home,” one officer told The Daily Mail, somewhat optimistically. “We’ve been watching it all night and it’s bedlam inside. It’s absolutely disgusting in there.”

Scumoween has made headlines around the UK, with varying levels of sensationalism (“rave hordes in 18-hour spree of destruction”, said The Daily Mail ). A sound-bite from one of the organisers has done the rounds of all the news outlets: “There will be a resurgence of this sort of thing because of the economic situation. It’s mirroring what happened in the last recession. It never went away but now it’s in your face again.”