Somerset fight night to go ahead, despite fighting

Council over-rules police objections

A ‘fight night’ in Somerset has been allowed to go ahead – despite fights breaking out among the spectators at two previous events.

‘Fight Night 4’, organised by Wincanton Boxing Gym owner Jon Le Monnier, is due to take place at the town's sports centre this Saturday, featuring  ‘white-collar’ boxing matches, where people in the professions such as teachers, policemen and doctors) will compete against each other in a limited number of rounds.

Mr Le Monnier applied for a licence for both the boxing itself and to serve alcohol for consumption on the premises during the event, which could attract around 500 people.

Avon and Somerset Constabulary objected in the strongest possible terms to the event, citing outbreaks of violence and antisocial behaviour at Fight Nights 2 and 3.

But Somerset Council has overruled the police and allowed the event to go ahead following a passionate testimony by Mr Le Monnier about how much the night would mean to the members of his gym and the wider community.

Nicola King, the police’s area licensing practitioner, said: “Unfortunately, the two previous events have resulted in crime and disorder being experienced – which is directly linked to the event and with those persons involved in the disorder being heavily intoxicated.”

Police were called out to the sports centre last September to reports of “multiple people fighting” at Wincanton Fight Night 2, with the local resident who reported the crime hearing “the sound of cars being kicked and people shouting.”

Ms King said: “It materialised that a large fight had occurred in which two males received injuries. These injuries were so severe that they amounted to grievous bodily harm; this matter is still under investigation and is likely to end up in court.”

At Fight Night 3 – held this May – police were called to reports to “15-20 people fighting in the car park” at 11:40pm.

Councillors were told that “someone had been thrown through a fence”, that all the participants in the fight had been “drinking heavily”, and that ten security guards had tried to breakup the brawl.

The police were unable to attend this second fight immediately, since they were responding to other incidents in Somerset on the same night.

During the hearing, Mr Le Monnier attempted to submit new documents as part of his response to the police.

He apologised for the late addition, stating he had unable to provide the documents earlier because he been helping his mother to move house over the weekend.

The sub-committee refused to accept these new documents, but did allow Mr Le Monnier to make a full statement, in which he claimed the two violent episodes were “isolated incidents”.

He said: “We do ID checks on the door to keep an eye out for known troublemakers and those on our blacklist.

“I totally understand and appreciate the increased potential of there being any incidents – so we have increased our security.

“We have had 1,400 people between our three shows. The isolated incidents across the two evenings basically equates to 1.3 per cent of the spectators being troublesome.”

Mr Le Monnier said that 317 tickets for this weekend's event had currently been sold.

Ian Lyons, co-founder of TRU Security (which has provided security at the Fight Night events) said that the brawl outside Fight Night 3 had been a “family war” between a family from Yeovil and a family within the traveller community – both of whom were blacklisted from future events.

He contended: “We managed to disperse the groups. After we managed to disperse the heavily intoxicated large families, the police did turn up, but didn’t even get out of their vehicles to identify themselves and drove straight off.”

After a lengthy deliberation in confidential session, the sub-committee ruled that the event could proceed with its alcohol and boxing licence in place.

Councillor Tony Lock, who chaired the meeting, said: “We are keen for this event to proceed and support events of this nature.”