Power play

Police photo iStockphoto standard 146x219Greater use of existing powers could be made to deal with the consequences of late-night drinking and to target problem customers, argues Gerald Gouriet QC.

On the weekend of 14/15 of June this year there was an illegal ‘rave’ at an abandoned Post Office depot in Croydon. The following Monday a 15-year-old boy who had attended it died in hospital having drunk beer laced with ketamine.  The Rave could have been stopped by the police: it wasn’t.

Variations on this theme are commonplace. Less shocking – only, perhaps, because there was no fatality – I have seen drunken youths pour out of licensed (i.e. lawful) premises in the early hours of the morning and run the entire gamut of vile things that drunken youths do, in full view of police sitting in a patrol car opposite, and yet suffer no consequences: no arrest, no fixed penalty notice, no warning – nothing.

Recently, I was shown a letter written by a licensing authority to a complaining resident, which defensively (and wrongly) stated “there is little the licensing authority can do to prevent a high density of licensed premises” and the resultant problems they cause. In reality, the authority can do whatever it thinks appropriate to prevent crime and disorder and nuisance in its area: this is an extremely wide discretion, unlikely to be interfered with by the High Court.

That is the crudely-painted backcloth against which we should assess the repeated demands for more powers to be given to deal with the widespread anti-social consequences of late-night drinking. As is the case with many other regulated activities in this country, the problem is not that there is a need for more powers, it is that existing powers are not being used. Particularly worrying in liquor-licensing is that the focus of enforcement is on the holders of licences, whilst little or nothing is being done about those who are actually causing the serious disorder on Friday and Saturday nights in the streets of our town and city centres. It is as though motorway speeding were being addressed by prosecuting car-showrooms.

A Freedom of Information request made in 2011 yielded the figures that in 2001 there were 20,096 arrests in the Metropolitan Police area for ‘drunk and disorderly’: but in 2010 there were only 5,472 arrests. It can hardly be said that in that ten-year period the incidence of drunkenness on our streets has decreased. More importantly, we do not have the figures for how many of those 5.472 arrests led to prosecution and punishment: I have put in a request for them, but am yet to receive a reply. (I predict that the number will be very much smaller.)

So the Government’s recent announcement that the maximum fine for being drunk and disorderly in a public place will be increased from £1000 to £4,000 naturally raises the question: ”what good will that do, when so few offenders are ever taken to court and fined?” When premises close because of the behaviour of their customers, the customers move on and cause mayhem elsewhere. Why shouldn’t they? Too often their appalling conduct does not even result in a reprimand.

We have ‘Partnerships’ (between licensees and police and local authorities); we have no end of ‘Initiatives’; we have ‘Alcohol Reduction Strategies’; we have ‘Action Plans’; and the Licensing Act is ‘rebalanced’ so often I am quite dizzy looking at it.  All are laudable, no doubt: but what impact do they have on the drinkers? Little or none. The triumphant statistics showing reductions in anti-social behaviour belie experience and observation. So the problems continue, and multiply – and we are given another tranche of ‘action plans’ and ‘initiatives’. I don’t wish to belittle the efforts being made, but I am reminded of Hamlet: “What do you read my Lord?” - “Words, words, words.”

At a recent licensing hearing a Force Licensing inspector from Manchester gave the following evidence: “My experience (includes)… a report commissioned for the Tonight Programme on young people’s drinking culture (Broadcast Thursday 17th April 2014) and the drinking habits of my own 22 year old son and 19 year old daughter. The evidence drawn from these sources is that young people go out with the intention of getting drunk.”

That is mine and a great many others’ experience too. There has been a lamentable failure in our responsible authorities to acknowledge it, and we suffer the consequences. It has been over ten years since the Licensing Act 2003 received the Royal Assent. It is high time we accepted that is has failed us. The 1964 Licensing Act worked: only a few minor adjustments were required to bring it up to date. Licensing justices had an unfettered discretion to do what was right, but the Act was repealed in its entirety. We should learn the lessons of the past and rescue the best of what was lost. Something nearer the old unfettered discretion was, in fact, returned to the Licensing Act by an amendment last year, when the word “appropriate” replaced “necessary” as the test for the validity of enforcement: but the true empowerment of that substitution has not yet been recognised by a great number of licensing authorities.

Gerald Gouriet QC is a barrister at Francis Taylor Building. He can be contacted on 020 7353 8415 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. This article first appeared online in The Times.