A SERIES of bar brawls and fights across south Essex marred the New Year celebrations.

Essex Police tweeted all the emergency calls that they received during New Years Eve and into the early hours of yesterday morning - revealing how they were inundated with reports of drunken disorder.

The incidents included reports of a 30-person punch-up outside the Woodcutters Arms, in Eastwood Road, Leigh.

The mass brawl took place at about 1.50am yesterday and staff at the pub told officers a group of men had been causing a big disturbance before leaving.

Half an hour later, reports of a 20-person brawl in Southchurch Road, Southend, were made to police.

Officers attended at about 2.25am and found that it had already dispersed - and no-one was injured.

Other incidents included one man calling 999 to tell police that a party had got out of hand and a large group of people were fighting on Canvey.

There were also reports of a fight involving ten people outside a bar on Canvey at 2.11am, a ‘violent assault’ inside a village hall in Chelmsford about 2.15am, as well as five men fighting inside a pub in Basildon at 2.42am.

At 3.18am, Essex Police tweeted: “Officers have been dispatched to a club in Southend following reports of a man “trying to fight everyone”.

Twelve minutes later there was a call reporting a fight involving multiple people in Rayleigh and officers attended the scene.

Essex Police also shared statistics regarding the high volume of emergency calls they received during the busy evening.

When 3am hit, Essex Police had calls regarding 328 incidents.

Call handlers deemed 87 of them to be emergencies.

The Force Control Room reported that over a five hour period, they had 28 abandoned 999 calls.

Six of those were so concerning to officers that police attended the scene.

Essex Police warned members of the public to try to avoid pocket-dials to the emergency number to avoid unnecessary call outs.

Anyone with information to help poilice should first call 101.