A bar manager has expressed “deep regret” for co-hosting a lockdown party which resulted in the closure of a well-known Leeds pub. Tracy O’Boyle, who ran and lived above The Duncan with her partner in the city centre, was one of six people given verbal police warnings over the gathering in April 2020.
Officers claimed her partner, Peter McKenna, wiped CCTV footage of the premises, which when later recovered showed evidence of a Covid breach. As a result the authorities stopped the Samuel Smith’s boozer on Duncan Street from later reopening, a licensing hearing was told on Tuesday.
Details of the gathering emerged as police tried to stop Miss O’Boyle from taking charge of The Old Halfway House pub, in the Robin Hood area of the city. Both she and Mr McKenna have already been working at the Leeds Road venue for several weeks.
