Licensee fined for showing foreign satellite football

After suffering a high profile defeat in the courts yesterday Media Protection Services has today succesfully prosecuted a Lanchashire licensee for showing foreign satellite football.

Sean Bennett of the Horseshoe Inn, Radcliffe was fined £2000 and ordered to pay £2060 costs after being found guilty at Bury Magistrates Court.

Bennett said his bosses had ordered him to show the Manchester United v Liverpool match in January this year but magistrates rejected this defence and found in favour of MPS.

Managing director Ray Hoskin said: "He accepted the signal oiriginated here and a fee was payable to Sky but he said his bosses had told him to show it. However, he was the Designated Premises Supervisor and the magistrates rejected his defence."​

After losing one case yesterday and winning one today Hoskin said this is the way it would be now.

"This will be run on a case by case basis but each case we win will make it harder for licensees to claim they did not know it was illegal to show these matches," ​said Hoskin.

FA Premier League spokesman Dan Johnson said: "This adds to 100 plus convictions we have secured in recent years and sends a clear message. The practice of screening Premier League games on foreign satellite systems is illegal; there are no loopholes or grey areas and licensees face the very real risk of prosecution.​

"I would say to all publicans and licensees to ignore the spurious claims the suppliers of these systems make. They are deliberately creating confusion in the licensed trade to make a fast buck whilst putting people's livelihoods at risk."

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Your Comments​Phil​ via email 28/06/2006So Sean Bennett had to pay a total of £4060 surely this means if for example she has had a sky alternative for a year or more this fine is still only a fraction of the cost of sky.

Mike Cobain​, via email 28/06/2006The guy seriously lacked a good solicitor

Basically how these cases are won are on quite a number of points, one of which being that the signal is re-broadcast twice and thus not a broadcast from a place in the United Kingdom.

In saying that he admitted it was a broadcast from a place in the United Kingdom he has admitted his guilt under the patents act section 297.

In all successful cases it has been proven by independent experts that it is in effect not a broadcast from a place in the United Kingdom, but a re-transmission, that goes first of all to Greece and then to say Germany, re-encoded, decaled, branded and eventually transmitted.

In fact the act that they are using, was never designed for theses purposes, merely the FAPL using intelligent grammar to associate the scenario. As with all patent arguments, they are very complicated issues.

Poor guy had a gypsy defence.

Ally Yeoman​ via email, 28/06/2006Could you tell me if the match that was shown was a 3:00pm K.O.?

If it wasn't then the DPS was using a domestic card and not a commercial.

In your report you don't memtion this and if ne was using sky on a domestic card then YES he should be brought to book.

Joe Ibrahim​ via email, 29/06/2006Does any one have a record of these 100 case's they claim to have won???? Also to quote Hoskins

"This will be run on a case by case basis but each case we win will make it harder for licensees to claim they did not know it was illegal to show these matches," said Hoskin. Does this mean every time they loose does it make it easier for the Pub trade to show it is legal.