Calling time on pub violence

Much has been rightly made in recent weeks of the worrying rise in gun crime. Reports of teenage shootings are bound to catch the national media's eye - and have provoked an anxious national debate.

Equally worrying are ongoing problems caused by thug culture. In recent weeks, the Morning Advertiser has highlighted several cases of mindless thuggery visited on licensees who have simply been trying to do their job to their best of their ability.

Licensee Ray Sutton, at the Last Orders in Bolton, Lancs, was left nursing two horrendous black eyes and bruises galore after taking a drink off a 17-year-old. The teenager, who attacked Sutton from behind, was merely given a caution. Fellow licensee Stephen Edwards, who refused to serve two troublemakers, was also attacked.

The end result was the same, with a meaningless caution dished out to Edwards' two attackers. Police are clearly following national guidelines here in dealing so lightly with people who are involved in only their first brutal attack.

As the British Beer & Pub Association points out this week in a letter to Home Office minister Vernon Coaker, this national guidance amounts to totally inadequate support for licensees such as Ray Sutton. After all, he was simply attempting to enforce the law.

Violence in the pub is the most terrifying thing a licensee comes across. It leaves hosts fearful about their vulnerability to the next attack.

Perpetrators know precisely where to find their victim if they are minded to repeat an attack. For those without a criminal record who are thinking about resorting to violence, a police caution for a savage attack is not much of a deterrent.

Anyone who hasn't worked behind a bar can never know just how terrifying it is to have been the victim of violence. The time has come for the Home Office to make it clear to the police that a physical attack on a licensee or his/her staff should be treated with the seriousness it warrants.

This sort of attack is completely and utterly unacceptable - and the trade needs the proper support of the law to deal with it. I have been in magistrates' courts and seen people sent to jail for mortgage fraud and petty abuse-of-trust offences.

A unprovoked physical assault on somebody performing their duties in the licensed trade should ordinarily carry an automatic jail sentence.