Festival chiefs win police appeal

Mean Fiddler has run the Leeds Festival since 1999

One of Britain's biggest music festival promoters has won a legal battle over who pays to police major events.

Mean Fiddler, which runs the Leeds Festival, had been ordered to pay West Yorkshire Police nearly £300,000 for its services at the event in 2003.

But Appeal Court judges said they were not "special police services" and could not be recovered from the promoter.

Lord Justice Baker said the ruling had implications for major events and any large gatherings of the public.

He said the court was being asked to decide on the dividing line between services the police must provide as part of its public duty and special services provided at the request of promoters, for which promoters must pay.

Police presence

Lord Baker said: "There is a strong argument that where promoters put on a function such as a music festival or sporting event which is attended by large numbers of the public, the police should be able to recover the additional cost they are put to for policing the event and the local community affected by it.

"This seems only just where the event is run for profit. That, however, is not the law."

Allowing the appeal, he said it had not been established that a request had been made for "special police services" at the three-day event at Bramham Park near Leeds.

The court heard Mean Fiddler, which also runs the Glastonbury and Reading Festivals, had organised the Leeds Festival since 1999 and asked for and paid for "special police services" until 2003.

But in 2003 there was no police presence within the music arena and Mean Fiddler argued it was therefore not liable to pay for police activity outside the site.

Mr Baker said it was for the promoter to decide, after negotiation, what special police services it wanted, otherwise it would have no choice but to pay the police for whatever scale of operation they chose to mount.