A PUB has closed after its landlord, who got into trouble over hitting a customer with a baseball bat, left.

The Live Inn, in Whitbourne, near Bromyard, said it was "sad news" that landlord Nick Nick Western-Kaye was leaving the village pub.

Days before its closure, the pub said: "I hope lots of you can come to wish Nick a farewell from the pub and hopefully we will still see him around."

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It added: "Thank you for all your support over the last few challenging years."

The pub closed for the final time on October 28 before selling garden equipment, drills, furniture, glasses and more to locals.

Mr Western-Kaye was banned as the pub's designated premises supervisor after he hit a customer with a baseball bat.

Herefordshire Council's licensing sub-committee heard in July 2021 that a row had broken out between the Live Inn in Whitbourne's landlord Nicholas Emile John Western-Kaye and a customer on December 24, 2020, with police called after Western-Kaye assaulted a customer with a baseball bat.

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Then-58-year-old Western-Kaye's solicitor Judith Kenney said he had taken the Live Inn on in August 2019 after retiring, but the fledgling business was badly hit by coronavirus and a number of thefts.

Two youths, who had failed to keep to an agreed bar tab payment plan of £20 per week, were barred from the pub, but returned on Christmas Eve, ordering drinks which they failed to pay for and refusing to leave when challenged.

A police report submitted to the council by one of the attending officers said the intoxicated landlord at the pub near Bromyard had armed himself with a baseball bat in order to deal with the barred customers.

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He had initially said he did not need police and was able to deal with the incident himself, "as that is what they did in the country," the officer wrote.

He had later said he was sorry, Miss Kenney said, admitting his actions had been over the top.

CCTV footage showed Western-Kaye approaching the customers as they sat drinking in the pub, before hitting one of them in the back with the bat.

A struggle followed, with customers attempting to wrest the bat from Western-Kaye, with Miss Kenney reporting that one of the customers had threatened to take the bat and "give him a good hiding".