Drunk and disorderly arrests soared on New Year's Eve (From Times Series)

Busy night for Barnet Police on New Year's Eve as arrest numbers soar

3:19pm Monday 7th January 2013 in News By Chris Hewett

Drunken yobs overindulging on New Year’s Eve gave police officers in Barnet one of their busiest nights of the year, latest figures show.

Officers in the borough responded to three times the number of incidents compared with the first weekend of January.

Arrests for drunk and disorderly behaviour rose 600 per cent compared with the following weekend as some went a little too far while ringing in 2013.

Barnet Police brought in one inspector, three sergeants and 18 officers on December 31 to assist the 22 officers usually on duty in the borough.

In total, 28 people arrested for offences including affray, assault and shoplifting, spent some or all of their New Year’s Eve in the holding cells at Colindale Police Station.

Six people were arrested for being drunk and disorderly - a large spike in the number police see on an average weekend.

Another six were arrested for affray, while four people were detained for assault and another four for shoplifting.

A spokesman from Barnet Police Station told the Times Series: “Six arrests for being drunk and disorderly is very high, the most you would normally see is two.

“It is very difficult with this sort of demand to get to people. If we’re arresting people and dealing with large numbers of disorder calls, it does stretch your resources and you may not get to people as quickly as you would like.”

Barnet’s firefighters dealt with 70 call outs between Christmas Eve and New Year’s Day, though the majority were false alarms and the brigade said it was not called to any major incidents.