Good behaviour trial at Trust Inns

by John Harrington

Manchester-based Trust Inns, the former Pub Estate Company, is making troublemakers sign contracts promising good behaviour, in a ground-breaking move that is being piloted at one of its Manchester pubs.

Anyone who misbehaves at the Clayton Brook in Chorley will be asked to return the next day with police, to meet the licensee and the pub's BDM, who will explain what he had done wrong and what he must do to improve in behaviour.

The troublemaker will be asked to sign an "acceptable behaviour contract", which says if he misbehaves again he will be barred from the pub, and neighbouring pubs, for life.

Ian Magowan, Trust Inns' operations director for the north, said: "We are working very closely with the local police who are trying to break new ground. It's a way to give troublemakers an opportunity to change how they act when they come into a pub. We have taken the initiative to improve people's behaviour patterns."

On the prospect of launching the scheme at Trust Inns pubs elsewhere in the country, Magowan said: "We are monitoring the experiment in Chorley at the moment. We will see how it works and take it from there. It may run throughout Chorley to begin with."

Magowan added that it would practically be very difficult to ban people from all the pubs in its 514-strong estate because they are spread throughout the country.

A police spokesman said: "This scheme is by no means directed at all drinkers in the pub, as the vast majority are very well behaved.

"But there is a particular element that causes trouble for themselves and other law-abiding drinkers."