New Year's Eve

Officers policing New Year celebrations in Swale’s town centres have been granted extra powers to prevent crime.

Dispersal orders are in place in Sittingbourne, Faversham and Sheerness in an effort to combat any antisocial behaviour and criminal activity related to the night-time economy.

The orders will be in place from 4pm today (Wednesday 31st December) New Year’s Eve and will run until 4pm tomrrow (1st January 2026) New Year’s Day.

A dangerous and unlicensed driver, who caused the deaths of two men in a New Year's Day collision on Friday 1st January this year (2016), has been jailed for seven years.

One other passenger in Ashley Howard's car suffered serious injuries when it crashed into the Jubilee Pump monument and overturned in a garden off London Road, Teynham, in the early hours of the first day of 2016.

Howard, 23, of Quarry View on the Isle of Wight, spent more than two months in hospital himself following the collision.