Upcoming Events :
Housing Seminar: Partnerships with the Public Sector – Avoiding the pitfalls
Thu 31 May 2012
Minerva House, 5 Montague Close, London, SE1 9BB
Licensee successful in fight against police CCTV demands
Fri 27 Jan 2012
The owner of a bar in Lincolnshire has been successful in defending a review of his licence.
The police submitted a review application after Michael Kheng, the licensee of Kai's Bar in Mablethorpe, was asked to release CCTV tapes as part of an unrelated investigation.
Officers wanted to find out if people who had participated in a burglary more than six miles away had been drinking at the establishment before committing the crime.
However, Mr Kheng refused to release the footage and asked the police to obtain a court order, in line with the Data Protection Act.
The force instead sought permission to carry out a licence review, but this was dismissed.
Mr Kheng has welcomed the decision, arguing that the police could have tried to "work in partnership" with the owner of the bar - Kurnia - instead of going "straight for a review".
He added that the Information Commissioner's Office has confirmed that a company is "well within their rights" to ask for a court order if it has any concerns about releasing CCTV footage to the police.
Robert Botkai, a partner at Winckworth Sherwood Solicitors, commented: "This is interesting.
"We are finding that the demands on our clients for wider and wider CCTV conditions are on the increase and some of these conditions amount to a veto. I question whether these conditions are necessary to promote the licensing objectives or just, from a police perspective, desirable."
