More than 100 teenagers riot in quiet Welsh village as police disperse gatecrashers at birthday party
South Wales Police dispersed the crowd after a mass gatecrashing on Croft Goch Road in Kenfig Hill; no offences were identified
A large crowd of more than 100 teenagers gathered on Croft Goch Road in the quiet Welsh village of Kenfig Hill, near Bridgend, on Saturday night shortly before 9 p.m., after a birthday party advertised on social media was gatecrashed. Neighbours called for police assistance to disperse the gathering and restore order in the residential area.
Witnesses described the scene as chaotic. Jayne Llewellyn, 42, who watched from the top of her driveway, told reporters it was "total chaos." She said she opened the door to an Amazon delivery to find well over 100 teenagers in the street and could not believe her eyes. "The whole road was taken over - I didn't know our county had that many children in it. I phoned the police after I saw bottles being thrown and smashed in the road," she added. The incident was captured in video footage showing the crowd running down the road with blue police lights visible in the background.
The mass gathering occurred on Croft Goch Road in Kenfig Hill, a village near Bridgend in south Wales, on September 13, just before 9 p.m. The disruption prompted residents to contact authorities as the scene unfolded, with witnesses recalling loud noises and bottles being thrown in the street. Video and social-media posts were circulating in the immediate aftermath, underscoring the viral nature of the event.
South Wales Police confirmed that no offences were identified during the response. Officers found the group broadly distributed across both sides of the road and quickly arrived to disperse them. Those who remained were escorted to Pyle Railway Station, where officers accompanied them onward to Bridgend and Maesteg.
The force said the gathering reportedly stemmed from a birthday party advertised on social media, helping to explain how such a large turnout emerged in a quiet community. In a later statement, a police spokesman emphasized that while the activity drew a large crowd, there were no signs of fighting or violence and the situation was resolved without injuries or arrests.
Residents who witnessed the events described a sense of surrealism given the road’s usual quiet, with Ms. Llewellyn noting she had lived on the street for nine years in a community she described as normally peaceful. She recalled spending the evening sweeping glass from the road and expressed concern about returning to routine the next day, including getting to work.
The incident illustrates how events promoted online can attract substantial numbers even to rural or suburban communities, prompting police deployments to maintain safety and public order. Authorities said additional units were deployed to manage dispersal and ensure that streets could return to normal activity as quickly as possible.
Image from the scene shows a large crowd moving along the street with police in the background, illustrating the scale of the disruption and the rapid response by officers.