Decision on Hornsey pub's licence delayed following row over crime stats

Haringey Council’s licensing sub-committee will reconvene in August to decide the fate of North Eight in Hornsey High Street, reports Grace Howarth, Local Democracy Reporter

A decision on whether to scrap the licence of “one of the most problematic premises in the borough” has been put on hold amid a disagreement over crime levels.

Haringey Council, which applied for the licence review, claimed North Eight (formerly Hornsey Tavern) had been causing public and noise nuisances and that fights had been taking place at the premises.

The council’s sub-licensing committee of councillors, which must make the final decision, heard from the Metropolitan Police last night (Thursday 17th) that, between May 2024 and April 2025, there had been 40 calls relating to the premises, with 28 involving violence.

In the Met’s statement they said the Hornsey High Street venue had “failed to adequately control patrons” and children had also been illegally served at the premises.

Licensing consultant David Dadds, acting on behalf of North Eight, accused the police of “making a false statement” and misrepresenting the violent incidents.

But Hornsey ward councillor Adam Small, insisted “revocation of the licence, not just curtailment, is the only effective and necessary course of action”.

He said the venue exhibited a “sustained pattern of disorder”and despite previous action by the committee and the police, the license holder, James Kearns, had “demonstrated very little commitment to barring customers”.

Cllr Small said he’d received “upwards of 30 complaints” from “ten to 15 individuals” and he’d also heard concerns raised by Hornsey and Friern Barnet MP Catherine West, who had herself received five to six individual complaints.

The Labour councillor said: “I wanted to underline one of the reasons I’m making representations on behalf of so many residents was fear and concern about putting their names and addresses in the public domain and fear of reprisals because of the level of violence they have witnessed at the premises.”

Two representations were heard from neighbouring residents, Henry Rudd-Clarke and Lowena Waries, who said their daily routines had been disrupted by the venue and disturbances could be heard on weekends and weekdays until 3am or 4am.

Lowena said she had changed her routes when using public transport as well as the times she decided to come home. She said she had been verbally assaulted by patrons of the pub and said one patron climbed onto her private balcony and “threw an object”. She later confirmed she had reported the incident to the police.

Committee member Nick da Costa asked PC Carey Denham if she would describe the venue as one of the “most problematic in the borough for repeated violent call outs in the past 13 months”, to which she responded “yes”.

Committee chair Lester Buxton also asked if violent call outs after 12am were taken out of the equation, would the venue still be considered “one of the most violent”.

In response, PC Denham said: “Yes, it would still be one of the premises coming to police attention the most.”

Licensing consultant David Dodds, representing North Eight, then requested the meeting be adjourned over what he believed was a discrepancy, saying most of the violent crimes called-in had ended up being “no crime”.

David said: “It’s serious, someone has come to this committee, a police officer, who should be professional and has misled you and has misled this committee.”

He added he was concerned “discrimination” was involved as a lot of the pub’s clientele were from the Traveller community and he accused residents of not wanting “a Traveller pub” close by.

However, James Rankin, a licensing barrister, representing the police, said David was resorting to an “old advocate’s technique”.

James said: “You find a discrepancy in the computer-aided dispatch (CAD) [a system used to manage emergency responses] and then you attempt to force an adjournment in order to press your case.”

He said the incidents were “faithfully” called-in, and disagreed there was need for adjournment.

James added: “I’m not suggesting the outcomes of the CADs marry up in every respect with how the incident was called-in because for example often an incident will be called in, police arrive but too late and because the incident is then over, then of course, there is no crime to record.”

After all the speakers were heard the committee took a 50-minute pause, to determine its next move, after which it decided to adjourn the meeting until 5th August to consider the case’s details further.

This article was corrected on 21st July to clarify that David Dadds is a licensing consultant acting on behalf of North Eight, rather than the owner, and again on 7th August to correct the spelling of his name, previously misspelled as ‘Dodds’.

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