Police were cracking down on the “drugs-related dance craze”, acid house, the Gazette reported 30 years ago.

A task force of investigators were working “all-out” to break a suspected ring of drug-pushers they believed were organising illegal parties in Hackney.

In the previous few weeks there had been a surge of acid house parties in the borough, many held in empty houses without licences for entertainment or drink. Police officers were checking out a possible link with drug dealers selling hallucinogenic pills like LSD (acid) and ecstacy at the parties.

Ch Supt Peter Kruger, based at City Road, who was co-ordinating the probe said: “There is a lot of money going around at these parties, with 2,000 people paying a £5 entrance fee and then buying drugs.”

Police had received complaints from residents throughout Hackney about noise disturbances usually at 2 or 3am. Police had stopped an illegal party at a gym in Cambridge Heath Road that weekend.