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Pop fans Pelt Police

          HUNDREDS of hippies blocked a main road through Windsor Great Park yesterday after one of them was knocked down by a police van trying to leave a pop festival with two arrested men. As the van left the site of the festival the hippies massed on the Windsor to Ascot road and pelted it with cans and sticks. Earlier ,police had tried to stop the festival taking place. By-laws prohibit the erection of tents, lighting of fires and playing of music in the park. On Friday night , as hundreds of youngsters moved in and began putting up tents, police tried to stop them and there were several arrests. But after several incidents, police allowed camping in a copse. By yesterday, however, tents spilled over a much wider area thousands of youngsters settled for the holiday: Fires burned, and music pulsed out from amplification equipment and mobile generators moved in against the police wishes.

    Festival organiser Mr Bill Dwyer, 40, said: " We are peaceable people enjoying a holiday festival in time honoured fashion. lf the police would only go away and stop harassing and dominating the festival there would be no trouble. All we ask is to be left alone to enjoy ourselves in peace." One of the arrested men was Sid Rawle, leader of a self-supporting community called The Diggers on an island off Irelands west coast belonging to John Lennon. The man knocked down by the police van. Gerald David Kirk , 23, of Hull ,was taken to hospital with bruises, cuts and a suspected broken arm.

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