'I joined police on 'Black Eye Friday' - officers are numb to drunken abuse'

23 December 2023 , 17:39

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PCs Fry and Smart make an arrest (Image: SWNS)

While many of us dream of a white Christmas, I have witnessed other colours in the run-up to the big day – black and blue, and red.

This is my first-hand experience of the bloody havoc of what is grimly known as Black Eye Friday. This week, I joined PCs Thomas Fry and Ben Smart on duty in Bristol to police the event. At shortly after 8pm, the Avon and Somerset Police officers were called to a Christmas party in a bar.

There, we found a 29-year-old man wearing a Christmas jumper with ‘Ho ho ho’ on the front being pinned to the ground by two security guards. While PC Smart put him in cuffs, a security guard told PC Fry how the man, who was partying with his colleagues, randomly punched him in the face after he came out of the loo.

The security guard told me: “It’s not normal for this venue but I’ve done security at loads of other places and after 10pm on Mad Friday, it’s non-stop. We see everything. People who don’t come out normally come out, have 10 sambuca shots and think they’re Arnold Schwarzenegger.”

Mirror reporter Matthew Dresch and PC Thomas Fry (SWNS)

A foul-mouthed rant followed as the man was taken to the police station, where he called the custody sergeant a “c***” and told other officers to “f*** off” – even though they had pulled up his trousers for him after they had fallen down. I was shocked but the officers were unmoved, saying they had become numb to drunken abuse.

Baby boy has spent his life in hospital as doctors are 'scared' to discharge him

Back on the road, at 9.20pm, another officer hit the emergency red button on his radio – meaning he needed immediate assistance. We raced to a city centre bar, reaching more than 100mph on the way, and found a middle-aged man lying across the road and pavement, with blood pouring out of the back of his head – yet another casualty of Black Eye Friday.

The officers helped the man into an ambulance and discovered he had been trying to get into a bar where his colleagues were enjoying their Christmas work party. He had been punched by a random reveller – who then fled – and fallen backwards, cracking his head on the road.

Mad Friday in Bristol (SWNS)

PC Fry recalled another Christmas where he stopped a car with four gang members in, and arrested one for a stabbing. He added: “He said to me, ‘You better take me to hospital as I’ve been stabbed in the back’. I checked, and he had blood coming out of his back.” A week ago, he told how a man had been wielding a machete outside a nightclub and waving it around “like Captain Jack Sparrow” from Pirates of the Caribbean.

But perhaps the most shocking festive revelation came from Insp Anthony Watson. “One of my colleagues can’t go out any more after he was attacked,” he said. “He went into a pub by himself to break up a fight and was hit over the head with bottles and other bits and pieces. He suffered significant cuts and bruises and a really nasty head injury. As a result of that, he ended up with PTSD.”

Yet another nightmare before Christmas that the police could have done without.

Matthew Dresch