Dear Brownstock festival goers

In the 18 months since Paul Wickerson was so sadly killed in 2013 after attending Brownstock there have been many times that we have wanted to talk to our festival visitors about the incident. Until now, this has not been possible due to laws around discussing a case that is yet to go to court. Following the verdict and sentencing last week of the two security guards involved, we would like to take the time to answer some of the questions we have been asked.

As a family and as a festival organising team what happened to Paul has really made us so sad and shocked us deeply. Our thoughts have always been, and still are, with Paul’s family and friends and we send our most heartfelt sympathy.

Hearing the full details of what happened to Paul over the course of the trial in the last 2 weeks was something that we, as a team, were really not prepared for. We have no doubt that you as a festival goer also found the details totally shocking. When we contracted the security firm for the event it required a high level of trust and came with a set of expectations about the kind service that they would provide. They had a good reputation locally and had they had worked on a number of large and well known events across the UK. In this instance we have been thoroughly let down.

For an event of Brownstock’s size there are many written plans that the security firm provide to us as organisers and also to the local authorities. These plans describe what they will do in certain situations - including a written description of the process they will follow if someone needs to be removed from the event for being disorderly. In this instance, the security company that we were using in 2013 did not follow any of their own processes.

It goes without saying that we have felt so strongly all along that the most important thing has been to make sure justice was done. From the beginning we helped the police wherever we could with their investigations into the circumstances around Paul’s death. Two members of our team, one of them Adam Brown who started the festival, and the other our site manager, put forward statements and gave evidence as witnesses at the trial last week. We are pleased that the case was able to reach a conclusion and that justice was done, however as I am sure many of you will feel the sentence that the two security guards received does seem so short for such an irresponsible and malicious action.

We learned so much from this incident, in particular we have changed the way in which we contract and work with our security company. After the 2013 festival we spent 4 months meeting with, interviewing and vetting security companies. We always met their event management teams in person from the beginning and the best companies we met 2 or 3 times before deciding who we wanted to work with. We asked them to write proposals and be really open and share all their recruitment plans and staff pre requisites. We looked for more than just badges and qualifications and asked how they look after their security staff, how many returning staff they had and how they review and manage them.

Once we appointed a firm, we worked all together for the remaining 6 month run up to 2014 to review all their documentation and above all really understand the tasks they have over the weekend and where we as organisers could support and add extra checks on process. Some of the documents we created from this audit are now used at lots of other festivals around the country. This work is ongoing as we head towards the 2015 event in 6 weeks’ time.

Paul’s family have set up a charity fund with Ski 4 Cancer in his memory and you can donate here http://www.ski4cancer.org/paul-james-wickerson-fund

If as a festival goer you have any more questions you can always reach the Brownstock team at [email protected]

Many thanks

The Brownstock Team.