Pub landlord is jailed for forging signature

A pub landlord and parliamentary candidate for the British National Party has been jailed for forging a signature to assist the sale of a Northumberland hotel.

Peter Mailer, 54, had used his former manager’s signature to push through the £245,000 sale of the Hen and Chickens Hotel, in Berwick.

Mailer, who stood as a BNP candidate in Berwick in this year’s General Election, was jailed for 18 months yesterday after jurors found him guilty of forgery offences last month. Newcastle Crown Court heard how Mailer had been ordered to pay Trudy Waugh £5,600 compensation after she won a tribunal case against him for unfair dismissal after he took over ownership of the pub in 1999.

A county court charge was later put on the hotel when Mailer failed to pay up in the years that followed, Newcastle Crown Court heard. That meant the business in Berwick could not be sold while the charge was still in place. But Mailer passed the hotel to his brother in August 2006 for £245,000, the court heard.

Mailer, from Bricksheds, Belford, had used his former manager’s signature to push through the sale of the Hen and Chickens Hotel. And when an accountant began to investigate the outstanding compensation, it was discovered that two key documents had been forged with Ms Waugh’s signature.

Jailing him, Judge Roger Thorn QC told Mailer: “One of the most serious aspects of this case is your continuous scheming to subvert the course of justice. To this day Ms Waugh has not received a penny from you. You forged the document to the Land Registry and entered in bogus agreements. This demonstrates a nasty side of your character and your meanness.”

Mailer, who was convicted of forgery and using a false instrument by a majority verdict last month, bowed his head as the judge jailed him before looking at his equally devastated family.

The first offence involves an allegation he produced a bogus written agreement between himself and Ms Waugh. The second relates to an official Land Registry form saying the county court “charge” had been removed, the court heard. Mailer was arrested last November after the documents were passed to police.

Tony Davis, defending, said: “There is no one more humiliated than him. He has been incarcerated for 39 days now on remand and it has been awful. It has been a shock to his system.”

Mailer will now face a proceeds-of-crime hearing in an effort to claw back some of his ill-gotten gains. He was also stripped of his other pub licences.

Journal Live

Landlord's fury over race-hate allegations

A pub landlord has hit out after being arrested on suspicion of committing a racially-aggravated public order offence.

Police swooped on Peter Mailer's premises, the Black Bull Hotel in Warkworth, last Tuesday, following a formal complaint over newspaper clippings, political cartoons and other items displayed on his bar-room walls.

Mr Mailer, who admits he is an active supporter of the British National Party, was hauled into Alnwick Police Station, along with the cuttings, where he provided a taped interview under caution.

He has now been bailed to return to the station on December 23, when he will learn whether or not the Crown Prosecution Service will charge him. But the 52-year-old publican said he was stunned to learn that the complaint had been made by an off-duty senior police officer from Nottinghamshire, who was on holiday in the region when he paid a visit to the Black Bull the previous Friday night.

Mr Mailer said: "This chap was in with a friend and their respective wives for a drink, and I had a chat with them. It was their first time in Northumberland. There was absolutely nothing said about the so-called racist items on my wall. About 90 per cent of them were clippings taken directly from national newspapers. On Tuesday two Northumbria officers turned up and arrested me, took everything off the walls and I had to go to the station to give a taped interview."

He added: "It seems that this senior officer had to justify his fat salary by rocking the boat in a sleepy little village hundreds of miles away from where he lives. I've had this pub three years, it's full of regulars of all political persuasions who don't have an issue with what I put on my walls."

Asked about his political views, Mr Mailer said: "I don't hide the fact that I am a supporter of the BNP, but I don't force it down peoples' throats. If I am asked who I politically support, then I will say so. I don't make a big issue of it.

"I'm all for law and order, more active policing and less paperwork, priority and more support for the UK residents in general and a harder line on illegal immigrants, but I am not a racist. I have Asian and Arab friends and employees, including the manager of my new business in Harrogate, who is a Muslim. I don't have an issue with race, just with spongers travelling half way round the world to abuse the system we currently have in this country."

A spokeswoman for Northumbria Police said: "A 52-year-old man from the Alnwick area was arrested on Tuesday, November 25, on suspicion of committing a racially-aggravated public order offence, and has been bailed."

Northumberland Gazette