Pub's TV soccer solicitor must pay costs
A solicitor has been ordered to pay £646 in "wasted costs" after failing to appear in court to represent a licensee charged with illegally screening a Saturday afternoon Premiership soccer match in her pub.
The order against Brian Hadcroft was made by Wigan & Leigh magistrates after the court fined host Kirsty Green £1,000 with £1,170 costs for showing the match, transmitted via a foreign TV station, at the Punch Bowl, Atherton.
It is the second time a court has issued a costs order against Hadcroft; he was ordered to pay £500 by West London magistrates following a similar case earlier this year.
The court at Wigan heard Hadcroft had failed to serve the required skeleton argument to the court and prosecution in advance of the hearing, and on the day sent an agent without a brief for the case.
Green was found guilty in her absence.
Two other licensees have appeared before Bolton magistrates for screening matches beamed via foreign TV stations during the "closed" Saturday afternoon period.
Alice Horridge, of White Horse, Kearsley, Bolton, who admitted the charge, was fined £500 with £1,000 costs.
Sarah Brown, who runs the Grapes at Stoneclough, Farnworth, Greater Manchester, who also pleaded guilty, was fined £800 and told to pay £1,600 costs.
