Police bar raids make solicitor uneasy

by The PMA Team A leading licensing solicitor has questioned whether police time was well spent in a covert operation, called "Operation Sconcer", aimed at cracking down on drunkenness in licensed premises in the West End of London. The Metropolitan Police is now mounting a number of prosecutions against licensees for "permitting drunkenness in the licensed premises" under Section 172 of the Licensing Act 1964. Craig Baylis, a partner at Berwin Leighton Paisner, is representing an unnamed nightclub that is facing a court appearance after police found two people who displayed signs of drunkenness on the premises. He said: "I am not sure an investigation which involved six police officers and a subsequent prosecution is necessarily in the public interest. Think of the costs involved mounting this operation and the court case that will inevitably follow. "The evidence from the police so far suggests that they found two people in the premises who displayed signs of drunkenness. There was no suggestion that either of these people were causing trouble and indeed one of them had already left the premises by the time the manager was called and questioned by the police. "In effect, therefore, we have a licensee with an excellent track record being prosecuted because on one particular night the police claim to have found one verifiably drunk person, causing no trouble in a premises where over 3,000 people passed through the doors." Baylis said that the offence was a very easy one for police to prove, with the onus on the licensee to show he took all reasonable steps to prevent drunkenness on the premises. He added: "Ask yourself whether police time might have been better spent in displaying a more visible presence on the streets and in licensed premises." A spokesman for the Met said this sort of action was taken when liaison with licensees over a particular problem had failed.