Teenage girl needed CPR after inhaling nitrous oxide at Newport pub, council suspends licence

A 16-year-old girl lost consciousness and required CPR after drinking and inhaling nitrous oxide at a Newport pub likened to the “O.K. Corral”.
A Gwent Police officer said the force had “significant concerns” about the running of the Ship and Pilot pub, in Pill, and described the incident as a “profound safeguarding failure”.
Staff were “overwhelmed” that night and the incident was “not fairly representative” of the pub, a lawyer for the licence holder argued.
But after viewing CCTV of the incident and hearing about a litany of other complaints, councillors suspended the pub’s licence for two months and imposed tougher conditions on its management.
The incident, on the night of Monday February 2, happened after a large group of people had turned up “unannounced” following a wake, the council’s licensing committee heard.
PC Mark Williams, of Gwent Police, said CCTV showed the pub “continued trading” after the girl “consumed alcohol inside the premises and inhaled a nitrous oxide balloon immediately before collapsing”.
“No ambulance was called and no police were contacted by staff or the [premises supervisor], and no basic first aid checks or safeguarding measures are visible on the footage,” he said. “The seriousness of this incident cannot be overstated.”
Premises licence holder Tania Sultana told the council’s licensing committee she had been urged at the time to not contact the police.
The emergency services were instead alerted by a member of the public, and the committee heard the teenager is now “fit and well” after a stay in hospital.
Council licensing manager Alastair Dearling said CCTV footage retrieved from the pub revealed “concerning” incidents and “matters of criminality” including the suspected use of drugs.
“When a serious incident does occur at the premises, there appears to be a lack of management capacity to respond effectively,” he told the committee.
Councillors were also reminded the Ship and Pilot was called before the committee last December following other claims of bad behaviour, including a bloody scene outside the pub after an apparent “violent altercation”.
After that hearing, the committee decided the pub could remain open under stricter licence conditions.
Matthew Phipps, representing Ms Sultana, apologised for the February 2 incident.
“We got this wrong that night,” he said. “There are clearly a number of issues and incidents that you would not wish to see in licensed premises at all. There is no getting away from that.”
But he said the behaviour was “not typical nor has it been repeated”.
Noting letters and a petition of support, he called the Ship and Pilot “a good pub… in the heart of the community”, with aspirations of serving meals and establishing pool and darts teams.
He said the pub had been “caught short” that evening and it was “difficult for us to stay on top of” some “challenging” behaviour.
“There has been a recognition that things need to change”, he said, explaining a new pub manager had already “introduced some stronger rules, [and] has started barring people”.
“If you’re minded to give us the opportunity to prove we can do this properly moving forward, we are very much in the last-chance saloon,” he added.
Cllr Debbie Harvey, a committee member, was less generous in her assessment, and said she had “serious concerns”.
After the committee viewed CCTV footage in private, she said the Ship and Pilot “sounds more like the O.K. Corral as opposed to a licensed venue in Newport”.
The O.K. Corral was the scene of a violent confrontation on the American frontier which has since become immortalised within the Wild West legend.
The committee decided to suspend the Ship and Pilot’s licence for two months and impose tougher conditions after that point – including making the pub an over-21s only premises.
The licence holder has three weeks to appeal the decision. ‌​‌​‌​​​‍‌​‌​​‌‌‌‍‌​‌‌​​‌​‍‌​‌‌‌​‌‌‍‌​‌‌‌‌​​

By BBC LDRS ‌​‌​‌​​​‍‌​‌​​‌‌‌‍‌​‌‌​​‌​‍‌​‌‌‌​‌‌‍‌​‌‌‌‌​​