Landlord who broke Covid regulations keeps licence

A DEWSBURY landlord who broke Covid restrictions by allowing people into his pub to watch a televised football match has been allowed to keep his licence.

West Yorkshire Police had recommended John Foulstone, landlord of the Woodman at Batley Carr, should be removed as licensee following the breach and a string over other incidents over the last 18 months.

However he will instead have to comply with a list of rigorous conditions that includes installing CCTV, employing security staff and completing a licence holder’s course by the British Institute of Inn Keeping.

Mr Foulstone, who has kept the Woodman for 17 years, was slapped with a £1,000 fine after police visited the pub in January following an anonymous tip-off.

They found 11 people inside and evidence that they had been drinking. No-one was wearing PPE and social distancing was not in place.

Police also raised concerns around under-age drinking at the premises as well as fighting, including a mass brawl at Christmas 2019 in which a 16-year-old was seriously injured.

They also dealt with a reported sexual assault on a “vulnerable” 17-year-old who said she had earlier been drinking at the premises.

It led the force to call for a change of management.

A solicitor representing Mr Foulstone told Kirklees Council’s Licensing Panel the Covid breaches were “unacceptable” but disputed a police report that said alcohol had been sold on the premises during lockdown. He said there was no evidence to prove commercial sales had taken place.

He also argued that Mr Foulstone had refused entry to those involved in the mass Christmas gathering and that the incident had not taken place inside the Woodman but instead outside on Hartley Street.

He said there was no evidence that “unlawful activity” was going on inside the pub and “no widespread practice” of serving alcohol underage people.

He also challenged the timescale of the run-up to the reported sexual assault, arguing that the victim claimed to have been in the Woodman when the pub was in fact shut during last summer’s lockdown.

The Licensing Panel said conditions stipulated by West Yorkshire Police should be applied to the licence at the Woodman.

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