Lap dancing pole and bondage equipment found in search of York industrial unit


Source: Yorkpress.co.uk.

UK – YORK – A MAN who ran parties featuring drug-taking and lap dancing in an industrial unit near York has been given an 18-month suspended prison sentence.

A police officer had difficulty getting into Mark Lea Neville’s “adult entertainment centre” on Pottery Lane, Strensall, and as he tried to get through the steel-reinforced door, he could smell cannabis and hear a “significant number” of people apparently getting rid of drugs in 2012, Reginald Bosomworth said in prosecution at Teesside Crown Court.

When he finally got in as part of investigations into an unconnected serious incident nearby, no drugs were to be seen.

It was another two years before police found skunk cannabis worth between £2,500 and £3,000 in the unit that Neville had rented since September 2008.

They also found a lap dancing pole, restraints and other bondage equipment, mattresses, pool tables and a bar as well as drug paraphernalia.

On December 21, 2007, Neville was given a six-month prison sentence suspended for 12 months for permitting the supply of cannabis on premises he controlled in a case in which a 15-year-old co-accused admitted looking after £3,000 cannabis for a friend.

Neville, 45, of Dringfield Close, Dringhouses, pleaded guilty to permitting the use of cannabis in the Pottery Lane unit on the basis he neither sold nor supplied the drug, possessing the cannabis found there, producing cannabis by growing cannabis plants, and possessing cocaine and ecstasy on July 7, 2014, in Davygate, York.

Recorder Keith Miller said the only way to deal with him was to pass a custodial sentence, but suspended the 18 months’ imprisonment for two years on condition Neville does 120 hours’ unpaid work.

Neville’s barrister Taryn Turner said he held private parties for “like-minded adults” who paid for the use of the facilities and drinks at the bar.

There was no suggestion that the sexual activities during the parties were illegal.

See larger photo: www.yorkpress.co.uk.