Conditional discharge for horsing around in pub
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Your support makes all the difference.A PUB manager decided enough was enough when two of his customers brought their horse into his saloon bar for a pint.
Peter Norton, a labourer, and John Williams, a retired horse trainer, were enjoying a drinking session at the Court Jester public house in Hampton, south-west London, when someone suggested that they bring Dolly in for a drink.
But though Dolly, 18, was old enough to enter, staff were less than pleased to find a huge brown mare slipping and kicking its way across the tiled floor of their pub.
Laughter rang around a court yesterday as bemused magistrates in Richmond, south-west London, were told how Dolly buckled the public house's door frames and sent reinforced glass door panels flying.
Disgruntled drinkers desperately shoved Dolly out, only for the horse to return 15 minutes later.
She trotted up and down the length of the pub before pausing at the bar like a scene from advertisements for Webster's brewery on television.
Saileh Mehta, for the prosecution, said: 'There was a suggestion that it was brought in to have a drink.
'But the landlord noticed something was unusual,' the lawyer joked. 'He wasn't prepared to serve it.'
Anne Rowe, a barmaid, said some laughed at the bizarre scene, others were scared but most 'looked on in disbelief'. She added: 'The horse was very well behaved.'
Williams, Dolly's owner, said: 'I was very drunk . . . I wouldn't have taken her into the pub if it was any trouble. People fed her with chips and even held a pint out. If you get drunk, she'll take you home. She's a good old horse you can trust.'
David Ede, for the defence, said it may have been 'a monumentally stupid thing to do' but Dolly 'has no criminal culpability'.
Not so Norton, 39, and 61-year-old Williams, both from Hampton. They were found guilty of causing criminal damage, given 12-month conditional discharges and ordered to pay pounds 50 costs plus pounds 33.47 each in compensation.
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