Landlord must wait for verdict on keeping pub licence

A LANDLORD who breached Covid restrictions faces a wait to discover whether he will be allowed to keep his licence.

David Foulstone has kept the Woodman Inn on Hartley Street in Batley Carr between Batley and Dewsbury for 17 years.

West Yorkshire Police has called for him to be stripped of his licence following a string of incidents in or outside the pub over the last 18 months.

Evidence was presented to Kirklees Council’s three-member Licensing Panel during a virtual meeting that lasted more than two hours.

The meeting went into private session for 40 minutes to view a video of the police’s visit to the pub in January.

Panel chair Coun Amanda Pinnock said a written decision on the pub’s future would be sent to the brewery and Mr Foulstone.

In January officers found 11 people inside the Woodman when all pubs in England were shut as part of the national lockdown.

They were watching a football match on TV. No-one was wearing personal protective equipment and social distancing was not in place.

Officers found evidence that they had been drinking.

Mr Foulstone was served with a £1,000 fine for operating contrary to coronavirus restrictions and was criticised by environmental health for showing “a blatant disregard for public safety”.

Over the last 18 months police have been called to the Woodman to deal with under-age drinking and fighting including a mass brawl on Christmas Eve 2019 involving around 100 people, mostly males, fighting with knives and throwing bricks and bottles outside the pub.

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

Solicitor Robert Brackup, representing Mr Foulstone and the Tadcaster Pub Company, said the Covid breaches were “inexcusable” and “unjustifiable” but that prior to the last 18 months the pub’s record had been “unblemished”.

He said the football match gathering had arisen from “a misguided sense of community”.