Pub manager ordered to forfeit £25k+ in assets over illegal gambling

Magistrates have ordered a pub manager to forfeit assets worth more than £25,000 and pay £1,800 costs following his conviction earlier this year of providing illegal gambling.

Cedric Fitzpatrick, 64 of St Helens, pleaded guilty at St. Helens Magistrates Court in March 2014 under section 37 of the Gambling Act 2005. He was sentenced to 100 hours of unpaid work and ordered to pay costs of £930.

HM Revenue and Customs also imposed back-dated tax of £2,952 and penalties totalling £9,750 on the defendant for general betting duty, failure to declare betting income and submit betting duty returns.

On 14 October magistrates ordered Fitzpatrick to forfeit £25,774 in assets under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002.

The defendant had been manager of the White House Pub, Sutton Road, St. Helens. The premises, which is now closed, was subject in 2012 to a multi-agency operation and subsequent investigation involving officers from St. Helens Council, the Gambling Commission, Merseyside Police and HM Revenue and Customs.

The operation found approximately 700 completed betting slips and a diary containing details of bets placed between December 2011 and July 2012.

The investigation also led to a licensed bookmaker, Terence Crehan of Betterbet TC Ltd, being formally warned by the Gambling Commission for assisting in providing facilities for unlicensed bookmaking at the White House.