March of the Facebook mob: The full chilling story of a precocious girl and a ruthless internet gang



Sylvia Hobday says her daughter will never be allowed another party

The first Sylvia Hobday knew that all was not well was when her husband's mobile phone rang. It was a police officer, with bad news about the party their 15-year-old daughter, Georgina, was throwing at the family's £1.5million Brighton home.



'He told my husband that we had to get back home immediately,' recalls Sylvia, a successful advertising consultant. 'He said that our house was being destroyed.'



Abandoning their restaurant meal, Sylvia and Michael jumped in a taxi. Five minutes later they arrived at their Grade II-listed four-storey home - and realised that the policeman hadn't been exaggerating.



'There were so many people, they were wedged in, unable to move, like at a carnival,' says Sylvia. 'There must have been 500 of them and the noise was incredible, a huge crowd of people yelling.



'Alcohol was everywhere, and two boys were trying to head-butt my mirror in the hall. I didn't recognise anyone and just kept thinking who on earth were all these people in my home?



'There were 12 police vans and cars outside. I was shell-shocked and totally scared.'



Sylvia's shock at what she saw was all the more acute, because when she had left an hour earlier the first of the 100 guests were arriving and everything had seemed so under control.



Like her daughter, known as Georgie to her family, most of those invited were from good backgrounds and attending private schools. There was to be no alcohol and four adult family friends had agreed to act as bouncers.



How did it all go so wrong so quickly? The answer provides a deeply depressing insight into the mindset of some of Britain's youth - one that will send shivers down the spine of any well-meaning parent agreeing to a similar celebration.

For the army of rowdy gatecrashers that descended on her home learned about Georgie's 16th birthday party from the internet.



Talking frankly to the Mail, 52-year-old Sylvia reveals that her daughter advertised the party on her Facebook site precisely because she was determined to get as many people there as possible, has expressed no remorse for what happened and thinks that last Saturday's mayhem will only enhance her street credibility.



'Kids wants to be cool, and to her friends this is cool,' says Sylvia. 'Sadly, they consider having the police round a complete success because of the heightened drama.

Georgie says: "It could have been a lot worse." She just doesn't understand - it's devastating.'



Sylvia's story is far from unique. Every few weeks there seems to be yet another story in the press about a respectable home trashed after a teenage party spins out of control. But significantly, in Georgie's case, her desire to be noticed brought her into the orbit of one Steve O'Brien.



The £1.5m home in Brighton was wrecked after hundreds of uninvited guests gatecrashed the party

He is also from Brighton, but from a very different background. Raised on a notorious council estate less than two miles from Georgie's elegant residence, O'Brien is a hard-drinking, 25-year-old amateur boxer.



His favourite pastime is 'getting wrecked out of my brains', and to facilitate this he has set up something called The Facebook Republican Army.



A group of like-minded friends, the gang scan the internet looking for forthcoming parties. When they find one, they hop aboard their own private coach and arrive mob-handed. Chaos generally ensues.



'When things get out of hand and a house starts getting trashed, nine times out of ten it's some of our lads involved,' O'Brien boasts.



'I personally don't go around smashing things up, but when you've got 40 lads all off their heads, something's bound to happen.'



On his own Facebook page, O'Brien writes that his main 'interest' is 'drinking myself into oblivion'; that his favourite movie is the defiantly low-brow Dumb And Dumber; and that his favourite quotation is 'Your (sic) here for a good time not a long time.'



O'Brien first came to the attention of the press in March when he and members of the Facebook Republican Army attended a party thrown by 15-year-old Gemma Johnson at her parents' home in Worthing, West Sussex.



It descended into a drug-fuelled orgy, during which more than £;5,000 worth of damage was caused. The family's pet dog was left comatose after apparently swallowing ecstasy tablets.



According to friends, that party and Georgie's party ticked all the boxes for O'Brien and his chums.



'They're in their late teens and early 20s and they are quite intimidating,' one said.

'When they turn up at a teenage party, they know that no one will dare say anything to them, so they can just barge in and do what they want. Once they've found a party, they put the word out through texts and news spreads fast.'



It is also the case, of course, that Georgie's party in Brighton was geographically convenient for O'Brien. But, as he explained to the Mail earlier this week, distance is no object.



'Most of us have known each other since school and we started off just going to parties that were local, but now we go all over the country,' said O'Brien, who works as a plumber and gas fitter with his younger brother, Shaun.



'We all chipped in and bought a coach and we pay a bloke £500 to be our driver for the weekend so we can all get off our heads. He's 52, single and on the dole, so he needs the money.



'One of the lads is a whizz on the computer and he finds us the parties, then we just jump in the coach and turn up.'



Of course, the fact that they are gatecrashers means that entry does not always happen. So how do they react then? 'We're not the kind to back down from trouble,' he says. 'If they let us in and it's a good party, there's no need to cause trouble. It's only when they try to kick us out that it all goes pear-shaped.



'But we can look after ourselves and there's been a few pretty nasty fights. Once it kicks off, all hell breaks loose and that's when houses start getting trashed. I suppose you could say we're every parent's worst nightmare.'



O'Brien and his cronies are gleefully feeding off a new teenage sub-culture that revolves around raucous parties. Which brings us to the satellite station MTV - required viewing for Britain's adolescents - and in particular a show called My Super Sweet 16.



Steve O'Brien: 'Every parent's worst nightmare'

The programme follows some of Britain's most spoilt and demanding teenagers as they prepare to throw a 'landmark' party.



Every week, pampered little rich-girls or boys are filmed stamping their feet and badgering their parents until they fork out tens of thousands of pounds to throw a bash - and the more vulgar it is the better.



Significantly, Georgie Hobday, who attends £8,394-a-year girls' school Brighton and Hove High, is a big fan. And with her 16th birthday fast approaching, she was desperate to have a party to remember.



At first, her parents' idea had been to hire a nightclub, but this idea was rejected by Georgie. 'I found one that would charge £850 and provide security, but it would be between 6pm and 10pm - so Georgie refused that,' says her mother.



'There's a church hall nearby, but when I suggested that Georgie said: "Do you think I'm three? No way am I having a party there."'



So Sylvia was persuaded to let her daughter have the party at home. Her husband, a professor of economics, told her she was mad, that she should refuse. But Sylvia, whose career saw her rise to the board of Saatchi's by the age of 31, felt pressured to agree.



'You feel you're a rubbish parent if you don't deliver, because you promise them things and see the TV programmes they watch,' she says. 'Kids see celebrities having things and want them too.



'It's true of everyone I know. Georgie isn't excessively demanding. Kids are older younger now, and they want things sooner. It's difficult parenting when there is such emphasis on materialism.'



Sylvia, who is the daughter of Swiss-German immigrants and a mother-of-two, adds: 'There is also more pressure as a parent because people have fewer children nowadays and spoil them more as a result.



'The Government is always going on about "every child counts" and, of course, every child is precious to their parent. But this emphasis on kids having an incredible childhood is so extreme.



'It's like you must be showing how precious your children are with parties and gadgetry.'



While Sylvia acknowledges many will consider her naive for trusting a 15-year-old to organise a party responsibly, she did take a number of precautions - she spent the preceding week packing away valuables in the loft. Alcohol was banned - all that was provided were plastic cups, fizzy pop and some loaves.



And Sylvia also arranged for four male acquaintances to attend the party as 'security'. All were in their 40s and two had experience working as bouncers.



So, she admits, she was caught totally off guard when the police called last Saturday night. 'When we got back, I asked the bouncers what had happened,' she said. 'They said to me: "We couldn't contain it." They told me people came in waves.



'The first lot were Georgie's friends, then those of sixth-form-college age, then older people, then just random people walking past.



'Within an hour of my leaving, I was told, people had broken the front window and were climbing up the balcony and through the window into the house. I just kept thinking what an idiot I'd been. My husband was furious. He didn't say much, but just gave me a withering look as he had warned me not to allow the party.



'I sat on the sofa with the bouncers who I asked not to leave. The police warned us that sometimes gatecrashers hide then carry on once the coast is clear.'



That the internet helped publicise the party is beyond dispute. Georgie has admitted it. Despite her being told that 100 was the limit, more than 150 friends accepted an invitation through her Facebook site. After that, the word just spread.



'I knew Georgie was on Facebook, but I didn't understand what that meant,' says Sylvia. 'People were also calling and texting their friends and sending messages via Bluetooth technology [a wireless messaging system popular with teenagers] across the city - one of the bouncers picked up one saying "hot party just off the Seven Dials" (their location).

'That these people moved in so fast is terrifying. Had the party gone on for its planned course till 2am, the house would have been totally destroyed. The damage is just what happened in the space of an hour.'



But that damage is expected to run into thousands of pounds. The beautiful wooden floors have been soaked in alcohol and caked in mud and need re-sanding and re-varnishing. The kitchen lino is marked with cigarette burns and needs replacing. A window is broken, the lawn is a sea of mud and a fountain has been smashed to pieces.



On the night of the party, Sylvia was so cross with Georgie that all she could do was order her to bed. The next day, she was made to clean up, mopping and picking up bottles, which she did with ' stereotypical teenage resignation'.



'She's never allowed another party, and she's getting a book for her birthday today, instead of a designer handbag,' says Sylvia.



Exasperated, she adds: 'I am very angry with her, but she just shrugs. She thinks I'm fussing. It seems to be that parties now have three aims for success - to completely trash the venue, to get everyone blind drunk and to have the police round.'



As well as being infuriated by Georgie's attitude, Sylvia cannot understand the wanton destruction perpetrated by the gatecrashers.



'What I don't understand is this desire young people have to trash places,' she says.

'There have always been parties, but there has never been this desire for destruction.



'I put it down to the need youngsters have to fight against something - they need something to bat against and last week it was my house.'



Fortunately, while damage was done to the property, no one appears to have been hurt.



The police, however, say that sorting out the melee tied up a number of officers for several hours. While they say they do not intend to take any action against any of the party-goers - and there is no suggestion O'Brien caused any damage at the house - a number of Facebook users feel the time has come to give O'Brien a taste of his own medicine.



'I don't think it would be that hard to fine his house - maybe 400 people should pay him a visit,' suggested one message posted last week.



As for Georgie, the prospects for her future birthdays are looking pretty grim. Ask her mother how her daughter will celebrate next year and the reply comes: 'On someone else's patch, definitely not on mine.'





