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Builder faces £25,000 bill over pub row
8 Oct 2009A builder who challenged his banning from a town's licensed premises by a pubwatch scheme now faces a legal bill approaching £25,000 after losing his High Court battle.
Francis Boyle claimed the ban was "illegal and unfair" and applied to a judge to review the decision by Haverhill Pubwatch in Suffolk.
But Judge Mackie QC, sitting at the High Court in London, ruled that the scheme operated by 22 licensed premises in the town was not subject to judicial review and dismissed his case.
Mr Boyle, of Elm Close, Haverhill, launched his legal action after his local pubwatch decided to extend by two years a ban imposed on him from all licensed premises taking part in the scheme.
He said the ban had made his life "horrendous" because it did not just apply to pubs but also clubs and restaurants and he felt he was under curfew after the pubwatch bar which came after he said he defended himself when assaulted in a local pub.
Judge Mackie ordered Mr Boyle to pay a first instalment of £10,000 towards the legal bill which could amount to a total of £25,000 after both pub chain JD Wetherspoon and Suffolk Police, who were represented at the hearing, applied for costs.
He gave Mr Boyle, who was not in court today, the chance to apply to challenge the costs order.
The judge said he understood an important function of pubwatch schemes was to share information about actual or potential troublemakers and make individual and collective decisions to refuse entry.
Lawyers for JD Wetherspoon said the issue was of crucial importance not only the licensed trade, but also to local authorities and the police.
If members of the public banned by pubwatch schemes were able to challenge decisions in court, it would mean that it would no longer be acceptable for a banning decision to be made on the basis of information provided by an individual licensee or the police without first giving the person affected the chance to make representations at the decision-making hearing.
The judge ruled that individual licensees have an unrestricted right to exclude anyone, particularly those who they see as troublemakers, from their premises. They can also exclude people others have found to be troublemakers using pooled information such as the pubwatch schemes.
He concluded that the only basis for an argument that such banning decisions are amenable to judicial review lies in the degree of involvement of the public authority and the police and no scheme would be subject to judicial review if those roles were limited to advice and support.
Melinka Berridge, a solicitor from Kinglsey Napley LLP which represented JD Wetherspoon, said clarification by the courts was needed as to what level of public support is appropriate before pubwatch schemes could be viewed as exercising public rather than private functions.
"This is particularly important because in the large those who are involved in the licensed trade are ill-equipped in terms of expertise or resources to be parties to a body which might exercise public functions with all the duties and responsibilities that would entail.
"The impact of this decision will have widespread ramifications for the way in which local pubwatch schemes operate throughout the United Kingdom and in particular will help to define what level of police involvement is appropriate for the continued successful operation of such schemes."
