A WOMAN has been hospitalised and three Spanish nationals arrested after a violent brawl broke out at one of Gibraltar’s most popular public pools.
The clash unfolded at Camp Bay, a rocky bathing spot with saltwater pools on Gibraltar’s western, Atlantic-facing shore, popular with local families.
The Royal Gibraltar Police (RGP) were called to reports of anti-social behaviour, including alcohol and drug use, shortly after midday on Sunday, July 26.
The disturbance escalated into a violent altercation involving several people, and officers arrested a 39-year-old man and two women, aged 46 and 37, all Spanish nationals.
All three are suspected of affray and assault occasioning actual bodily harm, offences covering violent or threatening public behaviour and an assault that leaves an injury more serious than a graze or bruise.
A woman was taken to hospital with a suspected dislocated knee, according to the RGP, though it has not said whether she is one of the three arrested or a separate party to the fight.
Witnesses told Spanish regional newspaper Europa Sur that the fight broke out between a group who had arrived from outside Gibraltar and several Gibraltarian residents.
They described pushing, punching and people falling to the ground amid the chaos.
The brawl came 11 days after Spain and Gibraltar dismantled the border fence between them on July 15, ending routine passport and customs checks at the frontier for the first time in over a century.
No official link has been drawn between the fight and the new border arrangements, but the incident has reignited an existing debate in Gibraltar over whether easier cross-border movement is putting the Rock’s traditionally low crime rate at risk.
Justicia Policial (JUPOL), Spain’s largest union representing Policia Nacional officers, has already criticised the new border deal, saying it leaves Spanish officers with limited authority to carry out Schengen checks — the passport and identity checks applied to anyone entering the EU’s border-free travel area — at Gibraltar’s airport and port.
The RGP has also faced questions over how it will track defendants banned from leaving Gibraltar while on bail, now that routine checks at the land border have ended, Gibraltar’s public broadcaster GBC reported.
The RGP says its new network of CCTV cameras, automatic number plate recognition and facial recognition, installed to replace the old border checks, had not produced a single match against police watchlists in its first week of operation, as of July 24.
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