Three more foreign football cases dropped
Sky and the FA Premier League have dropped charges against three Portsmouth licensees who showed foreign satellite football in their pubs.
Derek Hopper of the Royal Exchange, Sarah Cordell of the Meon Valley and John Nash of the Fifth Hants were in court yesterday to hear that they would no longer face prosecution for showing Premiership football on foreign satellite systems.
The three are part of the Pompey Five - a group of Portsmouth licensees who showed matches on Greek and Arabic TV.
We now call on MPS, Sky and the FA Premier League to review all of the outstanding prosecutions and discontinue themPaul Dixon, the Portsmouth licensees' lawyer.
The first two of the group, Karen Murphy and Andy Cornwall, were cleared recently when the judge found they had not acted dishonestly.
Ray Hoskin, managing director of Media Protection Services, which prosecutes on behalf of Sky and the FAPL, told the Morning Advertiser they chose to offer no evidence after the judge refused to give them more time.
He said: "We asked for time to investigate the supply of the cards they used but the judge said no - so on that basis we ran out of time and offered no evidence."
However, speaking after the decision, the licensees' legal representative Paul Dixon called on Sky and the FAPL to drop its outstanding cases.
He said: "Yet again we've established that decent, hard-working licensees have acted with honesty and integrity throughout.
"We now call on MPS, Sky and the FA Premier League to review all of the outstanding prosecutions and discontinue them."
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