'Entitled' couple are shamed for breaking out of a Cornish campsite at 2am

By MATT STRUDWICK, SENIOR NEWS REPORTER and JOE ROSSITER, REPORTER Published: 18:51, 11 August 2026 | Updated: 18:51, 11 August 2026 This is the moment an 'entitled' married couple break a Cornish campsite's barrier at night so they can pick their children up from a music festival. The husband and wife were captured on CCTV spending more than an hour trying to lift the electronic barricade at family-run High Penderleath campsite in St Ives, which had been closed for security reasons. A female is seen in the edited clip with a phone to her ear saying, 'we can't break the barrier because me and my husband have physically tried breaking the barrier'.  She utters 'we don't care about criminal damage' and bashes the security camera with her hand before they eventually manage to raise it high enough for their Volkswagen to pass underneath after battling for more than 90 minutes.  Appearing triumphant after causing £4,600 worth of damage, she puts her face up to the camera again and sneers, 'I hope your barrier never works again, you k*******s' before What A Fool Believes by The Doobie Brothers begins to play over the footage. The Daily Mail understands the couple brazenly came back and stayed for the night before being told yesterday they had to leave by midday, cutting short their week-long stay by a day.  It is understood that an electrician has managed to temporarily fix the barrier in order to secure the site.   The footage was posted on the campsite's Facebook page yesterday with the owners saying the couple would be receiving a 'rather large bill' for the 'extensive - and very expensive - damage' they had caused.  CCTV appeared to show the couple raising the barrier at Higher Penderleath campsite in St Ives, Cornwall, to leave during the night In a Facebook post the owners said the couple had caused extensive damage to the barrier Timestamps show they had been trying to exit the site on August 10 from 12.15am until 1.53am, even though the site has a strict policy that campers cannot leave the site after 11.30pm unless it's for an emergency. Owners at High Penderleath said they were trying to leave to pick their children up from Boardmasters, in Newquay, where Fatboy Slim, Lily Allen and Kasabian had headlined at the weekend.    The Daily Mail has made repeated attempts to contact High Penderleath campsite and its owner for comment but is yet to receive a reply.    The CCTV shows the mother saying they understood they wouldn't be able to get back into the site but 'we can't break the barrier because me and my husband have physically tried breaking the barrier'.  She then puts her face up to the camera and pleads: 'Can you open the door. We will break it.'  The woman is seen repeatedly leaning and pushing against the barrier during the one minute and 36 second clip and making repeated attempts to raise it with her hands.   At one point, during another attempt with her partner, she is heard goading on the phone: 'I'm just breaking the barrier as we talk.' A noise then rings out in what appears to be the barrier breaking, to which she says in response: 'Oops, did you hear that? And again.'  A woman spoke into the CCTV camera before raising the barrier enough to allow her husband to drive their car underneath She eventually manages to raise it high enough for her husband to drive their Volkswagen underneath before letting it clatter back down.  'We now have the pleasure of dealing with extensive — and very expensive — damage to our barrier as a result,' the owners of the campsite said in its social media post.  'For clarity, the reason for needing to leave was to collect their children from Boardmasters. Had this been communicated to us beforehand, an alternative arrangement could have been made. Unfortunately, that conversation never happened.' They added: 'This was not an emergency, and the situation was apparently made very clear at the time, including during contact with the police. 'So, rather than a thank-you note for your stay, you’ll shortly be receiving something considerably less exciting: A rather large bill for the damage caused to our barrier. 'We are perfectly reasonable people and understand that circumstances can change. What we don’t find reasonable is being left with a substantial repair bill because someone decided to disregard a security restriction rather than make arrangements with us beforehand. 'The damage was entirely avoidable.' They signed the post off by saying that they hoped the bill would be paid promptly.   The Daily Mail has contacted Devon and Cornwall Police for comment.