- This topic has 10 replies, 5 voices, and was last updated 11 years, 9 months ago by
.
-
Posts
-
Championship Leeds United have won their High Court action over who should pay for policing of matches at their Elland Road stadium.
The litigation involved policing by West Yorkshire police in the extended footprint of land around the stadium which is not owned or leased by the club – who claimed this fell within the scope of a constable’s normal common law obligations to maintain public order.
Mr Justice Eady, in London, said those services could not be classified as special police services and the club should be repaid.
He concluded that the services rendered fell within the normal constabulary duty to keep the peace, saying: “More generally, it seems wrong to discount the majority of well-behaved fans who come to Elland Road, whether club supporters or visitors, all of whom retain their status as members of the public. In that capacity, they too are entitled to expect police protection.
“In any event, I consider that there would be insuperable difficulties in seeking to sub-divide people, in public highways and other spaces, when trying to assess to whose benefit such duties were carried out. They are intended to keep the Queen’s peace in the interests of the general public.”
Exactly Whelan’s argument with GMP. Wonder if he’ll go for a refund. Didn’t we pay more than Whelan said we should because GMP threatened not to provide any policing at all if we didn’t pay up?
That is the reason i stuck it out there. I wasn’t sure of the details of Wigan Athletic’s case but from what i gathered, It was about policing around the ground, Footbridge and Miry Lane. The rozzers were probably charging for town centre policing too.
I’ve Googled the case and it looks like we won the High Court appeal against the original case. The club paid £293,085 ‘under protest’ (because GMP threatened to withdraw policing, which would have meant the games being played behind closed doors) but won the appeal. They got a refund of £263,378, plus interest of £74,257. GMP also had to pay all the legal costs of the appeal, along with 60 per cent of the lawyers’ bills run up by the club.
So, was the Latics case cited in the Leeds case? I would have thought case law would have established what West Yorkshire Police were doing was illegal.
Latics case link
http://menmedia.co.uk/manchestereveningnews/news/s/1086473_wigan_win_battle_with_copsThe 2 cases have been fought on different legal grounds & so are only related in so much as Latics & Leeds are football clubs
Whelan was arguing that the charges from the GMP for Wigan games were far exceeding the charges other clubs within the GMP jurisdiction were getting charges (I think he cited what Bolton were charged for a game against Liverpool with 26,000 on which was far, far lower than what Latics were getting charged for a game against some run of the mill Championship side with an attendance of 11,000) & also brought Lancashire Police’s charges to Preston & Burnley into it too – he argued that there was no justification to it. I think implicitly it was thought that Wigan police may have been charging for stuff outside of the stadium & car parks but it was never openly said. It appears from the link in the last post that the GMP’s defence was that the extra forces were requested & required by Latics & it was proved that they hadn’t been
There’s no precedent to the Leeds case where it appears west yorkshire police have openly admitted that they have been charging the club for policing on land that it did not own or lease because it was in the footprint of the stadium – and from memory Leeds ground is in a much more built up area than the DW, so they probably felt that Leeds weren’t paying what they should do coz they can’t charge for a copper stood on the road directly outside a turnstile
The police are there to police, that’s what us tax payers pay them for. They can only charge for a specific request for police on private property.
I don’t see why football clubs should be treated any differently than the pubs & clubs up & down the land that don’t pay for the police to be on the streets of Wigan on a Friday & Saturday night. Following on from that if some charity wants to organise a march through Manchester, they’re not charged either
If you are turning a profit you should have a financial and moral obligation to ensure the safety of the “consumer”.
I think you are right in the fact pubs and clubs should be no different and should contribute to policing operations directly effected by or a result of their business.
How you justify the cost, scale or necessity of said policing operations is a whole other problem in itself.
You’ll be shocked to hear that I disagree ;)
All businesses (football clubs, pubs or newsagents) all pay taxes so I don’t see why they should have to pay for any police who are not required on their property
In relation to football & Latics, it’s like the club being blamed & punished by the FA if a group of blokes decide to have a fight in the town centre with somebody else who supports another club when they have no control whatsoever over them or the incidentIn relation to football & Latics, it’s like the club being blamed & punished by the FA if a group of blokes decide to have a fight in the town centre with somebody else who supports another club when they have no control whatsoever over them or the incidentNo need for the FA to take action; the Wigan Evening Post do that without prompting:
‘Man beaten to death in Leigh after watching the Latics’ (yep, it was five hours after the game finished)
‘Hitler invades Poland as Latics are held to a draw by Telford’*
*I made that one up.
You’ll be shocked to hear that I disagree ;)All businesses (football clubs, pubs or newsagents) all pay taxes so I don’t see why they should have to pay for any police who are not required on their property
In relation to football & Latics, it’s like the club being blamed & punished by the FA if a group of blokes decide to have a fight in the town centre with somebody else who supports another club when they have no control whatsoever over them or the incident:ohmy:
That all sounds lovely Mr Tyldesley but one vital point you are missing out on is Ken Bates and Leeds United dont pay their flippin taxes do they!!!!
If they hadnt swindled HMRC out of millions you might have had a point there but im afraid Mr Bates having to write some more money off his tax bill because he is paying more out on policing wont be pulling on my heart strings any time soon.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
