Police said Owen Simmons had stood in the window of the bar raising a middle finger at officers and refusing to open the door
A Southport bar has had its licence suspended after failing to hand over CCTV following a "serious" after-hours disorder incident.
Several days later, officers returned to the Oath Lounge seeking CCTV footage and were given access by a cleaner to the CCTV equipment, which was not stored in a "secure" part of the building. After reviewing the footage and taking a copy, officers returned to the station to discover a problem with the files they had downloaded.
At a meeting of Sefton Council’s licensing sub-committee held on Monday at Bootle Town Hall, Dawn Lawrenson of Merseyside Police said there were a number of concerns around how the bar was being run. She told the committee that Merseyside Police had previously objected to a transfer of the premises licence to Mr Simmon’s company Oath Capital Ltd amid concerns over “mismanagement”.
She said that it was encouraging that Mr Simmons had employed a licensing consultant to help him understand his responsibilities and noted he had recently passed his personal licence exam, which would help with the management of the venue going forward. Councillors questioned why there was no bodycam footage of the night of the incident, with Merseyside Police Sgt Clarke, who had not attended that night, saying that while officers “should have the cameras turned on” this did not always happen.
Mr Sherratt said that while police claimed the problems were due to “bad management” it was actually because of “vindictive” complaints and that it was significant the council had nevertheless granted a licence despite the objections. She also stated that she didn’t believe the incident in May was “serious” as claimed by officers, adding: “It was an unfortunate incident, no doubt.”
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