Paul Walker Charity Event Shut Down By Police After 1,700 Drivers Turn Up

IBTimes UK

Police had to shut down a memorial event for the late Paul Walker at Thorpe Park, after 1,700 drivers turned up for it.

The fundraiser was held to raise money for the Fast and Furious star’s charity, Reach Out Worldwide, but locals were angered by the large amount of ‘boy racers’ who turned out, apparently causing ‘chaos’.

According to The Mirror, Surrey Police were forced to close the gates to the theme park before the event was scheduled to end because the cars were causing traffic problems.

Andre Michaels-Carter, one of the organisers, told The Mirror:

At the end of the day this whole event was in memory of Paul Walker and it raised a lot of money for our charities, £2,270. It raised a heck of a lot and the last thing we want is negative feedback. The only reason the gates got shut was, unfortunately, we had some cars come down from different clubs.

The noise control was a lot better than we thought it might be. We had lots of super cars come down from London to support the event. Sometimes these super cars make too much noise, but the (motorists in) high end cars that came down were more behaved.

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According to Thorpe Park half the money raised was donated to the park’s charity for seriously ill, disabled and disadvantaged children, as a thank you for providing the venue.

The theme park’s spokesperson released a statement reading:

Thorpe Park would like to apologise unreservedly to anyone who was inconvenienced by the event.

We were assured that the organisers were aware and able to handle the logistics of such an event. The fact that attendance was much higher than expected, resulted in some noise and traffic problems particularly towards the end of the evening.

Again apologies to all our neighbours this will not happen again.

UNILAD