A Liverpool pub that was the scene of a freak air rifle incident faces the threat of permanent closure this week.
The Lingmell Inn in West Derby was shut by police on May 17 after a customer was left with a pellet lodged in his brain.
Victim Jason Cumine ended up with pieces of fragmented metal embedded over four centimetres into his brain following the shot from Paul Allen, the father of pub owner Dean Jones.
Two weeks ago, magistrates granted Merseyside Police a temporary closure order, which claimed that the Lingmell Inn was a ‘threat to the public.’
Liverpool councillors will now decide the fate of the pub at a meeting on Wednesday.
Anna O’Hare of Merseyside Police told a court hearing: “You failed to deal with the matter in a manner reasonably expected of you if you were a responsible licensee.”
But Lingmell Inn representative Nama Zarroug claimed the incident was an “accident, not disorder” and that there was no evidence “to suggest a reoccurrence.”
A petition calling for the pub to be reopened has already received hundreds of signatures.