Examination of Witnesses (Questions 260-269)
11 NOVEMBER 2004
MR RICHARD
HOLMAN AND
MR GARY
SMART
Q260 Paul Flynn: I am sorry to interrupt
you, but is it not true that you used fly-posting when your company
was being established to make your name and now you are profitable
you do not need to do it and that is the reason you have stopped?
Mr Smart: We do need to do it.
It is very important.
Q261 Paul Flynn: So you will carry on?
Mr Smart: If it came to a stage
where it was against the law, that we were not using sites that
were even—
Q262 Paul Flynn: It would have to hit
you in your own pocket with substantial fines greater than you
face now.
Mr Smart: We would just have to
be informed that what we were doing and where we were doing it
was no longer acceptable.
Mr Holman: We have said several
times that we are now trying to make sure as far as we can that
fly-posting is only going up on sites that are legal.
Q263 Paul Flynn: Why are you doing that?
Mr Holman: Because we want to
obey the law.
Q264 Paul Flynn: It is nice to see you
being repentant and I am sure we welcome that. One would have
thought that it was the pressure from councils and others generally
that has got through to you, but the real point that you have
made, if you look back at your evidence, is the financial matter,
that there is no serious risk to your profits from the fine if
you are only fined once; it is a footnote in your expenses. Would
you say that the reasonable conclusion this committee should receive
from your evidence is that a huge increase in the fines and/or
you as directors being responsible, with the possibility of losing
your property or being indicted yourself for this present activity,
would be the effective way to stop fly-posting?
Mr Holman: I think you are going
to the extreme end of what we said. We have said all morning so
far that we will work with councils. We have a job of marketing
the business. We have used a method which, I accept, is an environmental
crime. For many businesses of our type it has been—maybe
"acceptable" is the wrong word but local councils have
not reacted against it. Now it is clear that this is a bigger
issue and we should perhaps have addressed this earlier but we
are now trying to make sure, which perhaps we should have done
before, that we working within the law. We will continue to fly-post
in the sense of putting up short-term posters but only, as far
as we can possible control it, on legal sites. It is not a financial
issue. It is a matter of trying to work within the law and the
fact that the law has not been enforced before may have allowed
us to behave in a way that now in retrospect we see is not acceptable.
Q265 Paul Flynn: So would you like to
apologise for the damage you have done? Would you feel a sense
of guilt about your activities as the owner of a prolific organisation?
Mr Holman: First of all, I am
not sure that we are the most prolific, although our logo may
appear quite a bit where other people use it. I am not sure that
writing apologies is necessary, if somebody wants us to write
an apology we will, but that does not seem to address many issues.
Q266 Sue Doughty: Can I explore this
a little bit further because, in fairness, I think there is quite
a lot of information that you have given us about you trying to
clean up your act in this. You are in competition with other clubs
and businesses which are all doing the same thing, what is your
view of the pressure that other businesses are under? In other
words, do you have any common approach where you say: "come
on guys, it is not in any of our interest, we are going to clear
up our act" or will you lose ground if you clean up your
act and other people will continue to use these sites that you
say are wrong to be there or should not be there? Is this entirely
for the councils to deal with through getting to grips with it
or is the industry as a whole beginning to recognise this by talking?
Mr Smart: I think the industry
as a whole is hit by the fact that the amount of posters up is
reducing, the amount of sites is reducing and everyone is reacting
to the pressure that is on at the moment. We promote events that
we feel we need to promote. Without sounding conceited, we do
not have any direct competition, so if another club is doing it,
it does not bother us. There is no pact for them to stop their
posters if we stop ours or anything ridiculous like that, we just
advertise an event if we feel the need to.
Q267 Sue Doughty: You are not fettered;
you are able to veer as appropriate for your own business without
worrying about losing ground to another organisation?
Mr Smart: Yes.
Q268 Chairman: Mr Holman, you said just
a while back that you are aware that fly-posting is illegal, but
there is a lot of other crime in the area. Are you talking about
drug dealing and gun crime?
Mr Holman: No. It was probably
not a very thought out statement.
Q269 Chairman: It does not seem a very
strong argument.
Mr Holman: No, it is not. I suppose
there are things that happen in society—like driving at
over 30 miles an hour in a 30 mile zone—which are illegal.
People do it from time to time, they know it is illegal but it
does not stop them. They will stop when the police stop them.
I suppose there is some similarity here, when it is pointed out
we should have known. We know that it is illegal, it is a method
that has been used by our industry for a long time and the police
have not been around. It is clear that it is not acceptable behaviour
and we will change it.
Chairman: I think that is a very helpful
note on which to end. We are very grateful for your time. Thank
you very much.
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