Issues around personal licences and convictions

What do personal licences enquiries and London buses have in common? asks Paddy Whur.

The answer - you wait for ages for one and then two come along at the same time. In our practice personal licence queries do not come around particularly often. This week we have had a couple of issues raised in relation to personal licence holders. They are worthy of reminding people of some of the issues surrounding personal licences. The issues that have caused us to dive for the textbooks this week have been concerning what happens to a personal licence holder when he is convicted of a relevant offence under Schedule 4 of the Licensing Act 2003.

Under section 128 of the Act a personal licence holder charged with a relevant offence is under a duty to notify the Court that he is the holder of a personal licence. This is to enable the Court to decide, in the event of a conviction, whether to exercise its powers under section 129 to order forfeiture or suspension of the licence.

The Court is then under a mandatory duty (under section 131 of the Act) to notify the Licensing Authority of the conviction.

Although the Authority will become aware of convictions for relevant offences when notified by the Court this does not always occur as from time to time the Court is not made aware of the existence of the personal licence. To ensure that the authority should know of the convictions section 132 imposes a duty on the licence holder to notify the authority of them.

Only a Court, following conviction for a relevant offence, can make an order for revocation or suspension under section 129 of the Act. The Licensing Authority can, when the licence is due for renewal, notify the police of the licence holder’s convictions for a relevant offence. If an objection notice is given by the police on the grounds that renewing the licence would undermine the crime prevention objective, the authority can refuse to renew the licence if it considers it appropriate to promote the crime prevention objective. Not a great opportunity to interact with the licence.

It is only possible that a prosecution might be brought against the licence holder, under section 132, for failing to notify the Court that he holds a personal licence. If a conviction is secured, the Court might then order forfeiture or suspension of the licence. This is nevertheless dependant on securing a conviction, something which might not occur if the licence holder had a reasonable excuse for the Court not being aware that he held a personal licence.

It has been commented upon, that it is perhaps surprising that the Licensing Authority have not been given the power to suspend or revoke a premises licence once they are made aware that a relevant offence has been committed.

A personal licence holder may not inform the Court that he holds a personal licence when he is convicted of a relevant offence for a variety of reasons. Clearly going through the Court process itself is a stressful environment for people who come into the contact with the process for the first time. This could lead to inadvertence in telling the Court that a personal licence was held. We are aware of instances where personal licence holders and their legal representatives are unaware of the duty to inform the Court that the defendant is a personal licence holder. At the other end of the spectrum is the operator who is fearful of losing his livelihood should he make the Court aware of the fact that he has a personal licence thus risking revocation or suspension meaning that they could no longer be a designated premises supervisor.

This is not the only area of the Licensing Act which appears to be clumsily drafted but on the whole does not trouble the licensing practitioner regularly.

In the circumstances it will usually be a criminal lawyer who will be defending/or representing the personal licensee at Court when a sentence for relevant offence is being considered. It is our practical understanding that in many of these cases neither the criminal defence lawyer nor the Crown Prosecution Service lawyer are aware of the ability to assess the continuance of a personal licence as part of a sanction to a criminal offence when it is relevant under Schedule 4 of the Act.

Set against the backdrop of all of this we would suggest the promotion of the licensing objectives sits as a paramount consideration to the Court. It may well be that a personal licence holder has made an error of judgment (perhaps for the first time in their adult life) and this may not have a bearing on whether they have the ability to continue to promote the licensing objectives through safe and sensible management of licensed premises. Clearly every case would need to be judged on its merits and the case we have been involved in this week would suggest that the designated premises supervisor concerned had not created an issue through the management of their premises either before or after their conviction for a relevant offence.

It will be interesting to see how long it is now before our next enquiry is received on personal licence issues.

Paddy Whur is a partner at Woods Whur. He can be contacted on 07738 170137 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..