Police 'castigated' for unbalanced evidence on a review

For those of us who regularly appear in review proceedings brought by the police, we know that it is not uncommon to be faced with a large volume of evidence supposedly relating to the premises, but which on close scrutiny proves on occasion not entirely to be the case. 

The current Guidance indicates that the ‘licensing authority should accept all reasonable and proportionate representations made by the police unless the authority has evidence that to do so would not be appropriate for the promotion of the licensing objectives. However, it remains incumbent on the police to ensure that their representations can withstand the scrutiny to which they would be subject at a hearing’ (9.12). To our mind, this imposes a responsibility on the police to ensure that the evidence which is presented is fair and balanced.

In a recent case, councillors on Sutton’s licensing sub-committee apparently have heavily criticised police evidence in a licence review carried out on a late entertainment venue in Sutton. Barrister Sarah Clover, who appeared for the venue, confirms that the sub-committee concluded that “a slanted view of the evidence was presented by reason of unsatisfactory editing of the CCTV (footage), to give only a picture which appeared to support the application and omitting footage which showed a truer picture of incidents. The language in the (police) narrative was exaggerated and unnecessarily emotive. We were presented with 1,800 pages of documents by the police - substantial numbers of those pages contained no evidence whatsoever. Police evidence contained little or no recognition of actions taken by the premises licence holder in response to police concerns. The staff witnesses for (the premises) were found to be enthusiastic, professional and passionate about their jobs. The CCTV evidence showed the door staff to be vigilant, to deal with any trouble in a calm manner and to show concern for vulnerable customers.”

Clearly any police evidence put forward should be capable of withstanding close scrutiny (and made the subject of such scrutiny) and if it cannot, the police case should be justifiably undermined.