I am standing on a stone bridge over the swollen River Eden in the quaint – and, for 51 weeks of the year, blissfully quiet – Cumbrian town of Appleby as a tracksuit-clad child walks past pulling a tiny, ragged pony.
Next, three young men with slicked-back hair tear towards the centre of the market town on a horse-drawn cart while another group sporting chunky gold jewellery enjoy pints of beer and the company of alarmingly scantily-clad teenage girls.
Some 30,000 travellers, gypsies and spectators have descended on Appleby-in-Westmoreland for the 250th annual Appleby Horse Fair, where keen horsemen and women from across Britain trade their animals, buy and sell goods and, according to many of Appleby’s year-round residents, enjoy a hell of a knees-up.
There is one thing everybody on this bridge over the river where travellers infamously ‘wash’ their horses in a centuries-old tradition have in common: we are being watched.
A camera mounted to a nearby police van is filming us at this very moment – an artificial intelligence program gathering data on our facial features to assess whether we are officially ‘wanted’.
Thankfully, as my image is fed into the system, the screen in the van being monitored by two genial officers from Greater Manchester Police’s technology unit notes that, as it stands, I am not wanted. That’s a relief.
However, the use of this technology for the first time at Appleby, which in previous years has been marred by incidents of fighting, drug-taking and countless arrests, has caused an unprecedented divide in the travelling community as they find themselves at war with one another.
On one side are the likes of 65-year-old Billy Welch, the gypsy spokesman, or ‘Shera Rom’, who helps to organise the festival.
Travellers driving a horse and cart near a police van at Appleby Horse Fair yesterday
A group of women making their way through a field as the festivities for the fair, which was granted a royal charter by King James II in 1685 begins
Officers used facial recognition technology as the fair began, which compares live images of individuals to a police watchlist
Mr Welch has backed the use of the technology, telling the Daily Mail: ‘If you haven’t done anything wrong, you don’t have anything to worry about.’
On the opposing side are the likes of reformed ex-prisoner Tommy Joyce, from Manchester, who campaigns to stop ‘anti-gypsy discrimination’.
He says Mr Welch is akin to an ‘informant’ for ‘allowing’ the police to implement such a heinous scheme to root out potential wrongdoers.
He is backed by John Reilly, founder of the Gypsy Traveller League, who has said ‘no travelling man sits with police while members of his own community are being targeted, stopped, searched – and even locked up.’
Only rolled out to forces outside London’s Metropolitan Police last year, the AI facial-recognition tech is used to spot alleged criminals or those previously banned from events.
Mugshots are fed into the system and, if the cameras spot a likely match, the computer provides a rating of how likely it is to have identified the correct ‘wanted’ person – with 64 per cent being the lowest for police to act and 99 per cent being a near-on certainty. It never provides a 100 per cent rating of accuracy. It has already been used at football matches and other events which attract large crowds across Britain.
Announcing the rollout at Appleby, David Allen, Cumbria’s police commissioner warned: ‘individuals who come to Appleby who are wanted or they are known to police, this will capture you.’
He added: ‘You might want to think about whether this is the best place for you to be during that week.’
And has it had the desired effect? Well, speaking to gypsies who have been visiting Appleby for decades, this year’s festival is said to be one of the quietest for many years.
Billy Welch, (pictured) the organiser of the fair, backed the use of the technology saying ‘If you haven’t done anything wrong, you don’t have anything to worry about’
A girl rides a horse through the river at the famed horse fair where droves of travellers descend annually
A glamorous lady and her friend ride a white horse through the streets as the fair continues from June 4 until June 10
The forecast rain played a part but the idea of wanted men facing immediate arrest because they have been identified by the police’s camera may also have been the deterrent it was intended to be.
Indeed, the talk around the campsites has been of the new ‘heavy-handed’ approach of police officers, who have been sent from neighbouring forces in their hundreds for a 24/7 operation.
‘The cheek of you, to get facial-recognition cameras brought into Appleby, which has been going for centuries,’ Joyce raged in a Facebook video directed at Mr Welch.
Another traveller from Barnsley, who declined to be named, said: ‘There’s too much police here messing things up for everybody. It’s harassment.
‘A lot of people here do straight work and nothing wrong. The police are taking stuff off people that they are trying to trade on the stalls. It makes life hard for people trying to make a living. I’m sick of the police telling us where we can and where we can’t go.’
Talking me through the controversial technology, criticised by privacy campaigners who complain of a move towards a ‘Big Brother’ society, PC Mark Mannion, of Greater Manchester Police, reiterates: ‘If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.’
Admittedly, watching a live feed from the camera analysing every face who comes into shot is initially disconcerting: the eyes are scanned, then the full face.
Numbers flash. The subject is then identified in red lettering as ‘unknown’ (not wanted) or an alarm pings and the officers must make an assessment of whether to target the person for questioning or arrest.
‘We are keeping people safe,’ PC Mannion says. ‘If we spot a registered sex offender we can do something about it. There are lots of young girls and boys here.
‘If somebody is classed as a missing person we can feed their image into the system and try and find them.
‘If nobody is flagged on the system and there is no disorder, then that’s a good day for everybody.’
Still, the AI camera and the heavy police presence hasn’t managed to deter all those intent on committing crime at Appleby, which, with its many trading stalls, has become a magnet for the sale of counterfeit goods.
In 2024 alone, police seized half-a-million pounds-worth of counterfeit perfumes, sunglasses, clothes and the like.
As of yesterday morning, Cumbria Police had made 36 arrests for offences including possession of an offensive weapon, drug driving, assault and possession with intent to supply drugs.
At the same point last year, 49 arrests had been made.
Last week, prior to the festival officially getting underway, police seized four stolen vehicles – a car, two horse boxes and a wood chipper.
Retired teachers and friends June Garner, 79, and Audrey Turner, 88, (pictured left to right) had walked into the centre of Appleby on Thursday hoping to see the horses wash in the river
David McKenna, who grew up in Appleby, said he ‘loved’ the fair and that it brought ‘vibrancy’ to the town
Police monitored facial recognition cameras from inside a van as the fair began this week (Pictured: Glen Keogh and PC Mark Mannion)
They also dealt with a teenage traveller threatening a local person with an axe, a horsebox being driven at a police officer and children riding recklessly among traffic on horse and carts.
In Kirkby Stephen, Cumbria, the youth centre was closed down due to incidents involving the travelling community.
Indeed, in Appleby, which usually has a population of 3,000, many businesses shut up shop for the duration of the fair and some locals plan holidays for the week to ensure they are out of the area. But on Thursday, the first official day of the gathering, the two pubs in the town which decided to remain open were doing a roaring trade.
That day, Cumbria Police stopped a van heading to the fair’s trading fields seizing realistic-looking air weapons as well as counterfeit vapes and children’s toys.
In the early hours of yesterday morning, another vehicle heading to the trading fields was stopped and police discovered 99 ‘pyramid’ rings.
The gold rings with a mounted pyramid shape have been used ‘to cause significant injury to people,’ according to police gold commander for the horse fair, Dan St Quintin.
The fair traces its roots back to 1775, when it was little more than a gathering of sheep and cattle traders.
It wasn’t until the early 20th century that it became associated with the gypsy community and is now known as the largest gathering of gypsies and travellers in Europe.
Horses are traditionally trotted up and down the ‘flashing lane’ – a rural road closed off during the fair – to show off their capabilities before they are haggled over.
Despite the festival’s long-standing heritage, it would be something of an understatement to say it is not so revered by a minority – maybe even the majority – of Appleby’s long-term residents.
Traveller Jim Brough stands outside his traditional gypsy caravan on the camp grounds of Appleby
More travellers ride their horse and cart through the town as the fair, which has roots dating back to the 12th century, continues
A traditional gypsy caravan being pulled by two horses as a group travels to Appleby Horse Fair
‘F****** go away, you f****** b*******,’ a 68-year-old woman who works in Conservative politics says seconds after answering the door to her stone cottage close to Appleby’s main drag where gypsies are drinking the pub dry.
‘That’s what I really think and would want to say to them,’ she laughs. ‘I never want to see them ever again.’
She has lived on the street for four years and, like many residents, is reluctant to give her name for fear of any possibly retribution.
‘They’re not supposed to have their horses in the middle of the road but they are going up and down, up and down.’
‘If you don’t know about horses you think it is a nice spectacle but we can see the appalling state some of them are in – how thin they are, with their little legs and they are being thrashed up and down here,’ she adds, pointing to the road in front of her property.
‘I hate the litter. I’ve been in the local Spar and watched them shoplifting handfuls of sweets.
‘The hairdressers has had to shut because they want to wash there as has the leisure centre because that’s where they go to shower.
‘It’s become ridiculous.’
Her concerns about the hundreds, if not thousands, of horses brought to Appleby each year are valid.
Charities such as the RSPCA are in attendance and Leanne Plumtree, of the Appleby Horse Project, who has worked the festival for the last 20 years, said sadly that a very small number of horses do die each year. The most common issue is horses being over-worked during the fair, pulling carts at speed for many hours a day and not being properly rested.
There are also issues with dehydration in horses, as many travellers still believe the outdated myth that the animals shouldn’t be given water immediately after exercise as it can cause colic.
Ms Plumtree and her team are on hand to check horses for wounds and offer advice on how to properly care for the animals.
‘We are here because we need to be here,’ she said.
Retired teachers and friends June Garner, 79, and Audrey Turner, 88, had walked into the centre of Appleby on Thursday hoping to see the horses wash in the river.
However it couldn’t go ahead that day because the river was too swollen.
‘I have mixed feelings about it all,’ Ms Garner said. ‘Some people hate it – the shops and cafes close up and it can be intimidating with such huge crowds of them, and then they get full of drink which is more intimidating.’
Ms Turner adds: ‘After they have gone there is quite a lot of litter too. A lot of the laybys around here will be full of litter once it has finished. But I do think they get blamed for things they haven’t done.’
Another resident, who runs a shop selling gifts, jewellery and other trinkets, reflected the position of many of the town’s residents
She said: ‘I have to remain neutral. I can’t afford to make a comment.
A man walks a brown and white pony as well as a cart walks past a police van in Appleby yesterday
Police arrived in numbers in Appleby to enforce restrictions on horse traffic on the eve of the event
‘You will hear that with a lot of people who own businesses here.
‘I don’t mind them coming here because they have been coming here for 250 years. If you buy property within Appleby then you should know they come and you either live and let live or move elsewhere.
‘In every walk of life you have good people and bad people. It’s wrong to typecast any individual.’
David McKenna, who grew up in Appleby and returned to the town last year after almost 30 years living in Australia, was even more diplomatic.
The 57-year-old said: ‘I love it [the fair]. It’s a real tradition and it brings a vibrancy to the town, a bit of colour, a bit of life.
‘Contrary to some people’s opinion, most people are generally very respectful.
‘If you drop 30,000 people in a small town you will always get minor problems, it’s just the same as a football match in a major city. It puts the town on the map and brings international business which can only be good.’
Sitting outside his caravan with his son’s cockapoo Lizzo around his feet, Mr Welch brushes off the criticism from members of his own community about his so-called complicity with the police.
‘The police in general do a brilliant job,’ he says.
‘You do get the odd police officer being overzealous but they are only human. It’s the same thing with gypsies – you are always going to get the odd idiot.
‘I can’t tell the police to do anything. Whether you agree with it [AI tech] or don’t they will do it anyway.’
As Appleby braces itself for the busiest day of the fair today it remains to be seen how successful the futuristic tech will be in rooting out criminals.
But Mr Welch wants the world to know he and the majority of his fellow travellers have nothing to hide.
‘This is the future,’ he said.
