Mountain bikers discover illegal rave: video

Tim Fry's quiet weekend mountain bike ride on the South Downs turned up something unexpected - an illegal rave, with hundreds of revellers sprawled all over the path at Devils Dyke, Sussex.

"Rich and I thought we'd go for nice quiet sunshine ride at the Dyke on the South Downs way, what we saw next was just plain surreal and not a bunch of badgers," Fry wrote on his YouTube page.

According to Sussex Police, the rave continued until Monday morning and included around 2,000 people and 400 vehicles. Police were present at the event after complaints from local residents, but had decided not to shut the event down "given the number of police officers available" but they also said that "active measures were taken to seek to prevent it escalating further".

Sussex Police's Chief Superintendent Wayne Jones added: "Such gatherings are unlicensed, illegal parties often held on land which is not owned by the organisers. These raves can cause a huge amount of disruption to local residents and damage to the land.

"Where we can we will attend a report at the earliest opportunity to try to bring it to a safe conclusion. When a large number of people are already at the site it is not always possible for us to shut down the rave safely with the police resources available at that time."

The police statement records that "90 per cent of the rubbish had been collected into bags and left at the site".

Warning: video contains bad language