Established music venue, The Winning Post, in Sutton, has successfully defended itself from six alleged breaches of a noise abatement notice.
The site, which was called the Red Lion in the 1960s when the Rolling Stones were first spotted playing there, was served the notice in 2013.
It was alleged that the pub had held private functions, Saturday night DJ nights and karaoke evenings which breached the noise abatement notice. The complaints predominantly came from a flat which was approximately 40 metres from the pub across the beer garden and a car park.
The pub was defended licensing law specialists Keystone, with expert evidence from Richard Vivian from Big Sky Acoustics.
The defence pointed out that the local authority had relied on opinion evidence, from a number of noise officers, rather than on calibrated noise measurements.
Keystone’s Robert Sutherland said: “Although the law allows the local authority to bring prosecutions without scientific data, that evidence has to be reliable. If it isn’t, local authorities cannot simply say they don’t need accurate data and expect the courts to convict individuals.”
Vivian added: “Although witness statements were submitted by six officers there was no substance to their evidence. They all relied entirely on vague and subjective assessments of the noise levels and there was no consistency between them.”
The inconsistency between the officer’s descriptions of noise levels, and the insistence of the lead officer that the measurement of noise only ever confuses matters, was thoroughly examined by Sutherland. When asked why officers had not used any form of scientific measurement equipment at all the lead officer responded “It is such a minefield you should not rely on meter. You would need an expert opinion. I am not an expert”.
