Pub has license revoked after criminal activity warning

Anthony Lewis, local democracy reporter

A pub will have to close after having its licence revoked because of stolen goods being sold outside the premises.

South Wales Police called for a licence review of the Wyndham Arms in Merthyr Tydfil, and after a meeting on Wednesday, July 2, the council’s statutory licensing committee decided to revoke the licence meaning it will close.

The application from the police related to an incident at the premises on March 22 when stolen meat and other items were purchased from a known shoplifter by Kevin Jones who is the premises licence-holder and designated premises supervisor.

At a later police interview Kevin Jones admitted knowingly buying stolen goods and was cautioned for this offence on May 20, the decision notice said.

Warning letter 

The committee saw a police warning letter sent to Kevin Jones on October 20 referring to “continuous” criminal activity (retail theft) linked to the premises and the committee heard further details of the past and current problems associated with shoplifting sales at the premises from the police at the meeting.

The committee accepted the police’s evidence that for some considerable time going back a number of years the Wyndham Arms had been central to the on-going shoplifting blight on local retailers on the basis that shoplifters regularly took stolen items to the premises to sell to patrons.

Evidence was given by PC Steve Moseley confirming the efforts the police had made to work with Kevin Jones with the aim of breaking this chain of criminality.

But the decision notice said that Kevin Jones had acted in a “polar opposite way” and had by his actions actively promoted crime when he purchased stolen goods and failed to take any effective steps to stop others buying and selling stolen goods at the premises.

Evidence

PC Moseley also provided evidence of two other recorded incidents of stolen goods being sold to patrons of the Wyndham at the pub.

These took place on May 13, a week after the review application was submitted, and on June 17, a month after receiving his formal caution.

Kevin Jones denied there had been any further problems at the premises and explained the efforts he had made to stop the sale of shop lifted goods at the premises.

But the committee accepted the police evidence and found that the efforts Kevin Jones maintained that he had made to address the issues at the premises were insufficient to deal with the ongoing breach of the prevention of crime and disorder licensing objective.

This led the committee to conclude that either “at best Kevin Jones was unable to control what went on at his premises or at worst he did not care”.

Either way his actions were “not ones that led the sub-committee to believe that Kevin Jones was able to bring about a positive change at the premises.”

The committee agreed with the police that the actions of Kevin Jones were such that they had no faith in him addressing the shoplifting criminality linked to the premises and were satisfied that whilst Kevin Jones remained the premises-licence holder and designated premises supervisor of the premises the Wyndham Arms would “continue to be a focal point for the sale of stolen goods”.

CCTV

It was confirmed that the outside of the premises had adequate cover from CCTV but there were “blind” areas inside the premises which had not been addressed by Kevin Jones despite the same having been highlighted to him by the police.

The police said adding conditions to the premises licence would not ensure compliance with the prevention of crime and disorder licensing objective and sergeant Andy Jones commented that “target-hardening” would not work to address the licensing breaches.

The premises licence-holder did not suggest any additional conditions and confirmed when questioned that he had not put up notices at the premises to say that the sale of shoplifted goods at the premises would not be tolerated despite this step having been recommended to him in the police warning letter in October 2024.

An option available to the committee was to remove the designated premises supervisor (DPS) but this was not considered appropriate because Kevin Jones was both DPS and premises licence-holder and while he remained premises licence-holder he would continue to be the controlling mind behind
how the premises was run.

The committee considered the submissions in writing from Kevin and Ryan Jones but were not able to take the personal circumstances of Kevin Jones into account as a “defence” to breaching the licensing objectives.

The decision notice said: “The licensing sub-committee’s duty after considering all relevant evidence was to take steps with a view to the promotion of the licensing objectives in the interests of the wider community and not those of the licence-holder.”

The committee were of the view that the only effective, proportionate, and appropriate way of ensuring the prevention of crime and disorder licensing principle was not breached was for the chain of criminality from the theft in the shop to the sale to patrons at the premises to be broken and to do that it was proportionate to revoke the premises licence and for the premises to close.

The committee considered suspending the premises licence for a period up to three months but decided that this was not appropriate and that it was highly likely that if the premises re-opened after a period of suspension with Kevin Jones remaining as the premises licence-holder the sale of shoplifted goods at the premises would restart and the licensing objective would again be breached.

The committee were given evidence of the damage shoplifting is having on the retail community of Merthyr Tydfil and how this affects the general public and the committee were not prepared to take the risk of licencing breaches at the premises restarting after a period of suspension.