A Korean karaoke bar dropped a bid for longer opening hours as police were preparing to present documentation claiming sex acts were being performed on customers.
The owner of Imperial Karaoke in Malden Manor has consistently rejected claims his bar has been used for sexual services, blaming the allegations on cultural misunderstandings.
Speaking through a translator, owner Sung Chul Lim said: "Police have no evidence. At the last hearing, my solicitor talked to police about that.
"It is so unfair."
The police report claimed intelligence showed the bar was being used to provide sexual services on June 17 this year.
Officers claimed they found women with no permission to work in the UK inside the bar during another visit on August 5.
The women were performing sex acts on customers, it was claimed.
The claims came to light after the bar applied for longer opening hours on October 31 and November 1, but withdrew its bid due to technical considerations.
The report was shown to a meeting of Kingston Council’s licensing committee on Tuesday morning when the bid was withdrawn.
Mr Lim is the licence holder since the controversial bar – also known as Forest and Ocean, and Bar Bimumba – opened in November 2007.
Steve Price, who now manages the bar and another in Staines for Mr Lim, said there was no evidence for the intelligence which he said was based on nothing more than phone calls or letters.
He denied the bar was offering sexual services as the documents to the hearing had alleged.
He said: "They shouldn’t have been brought up as part of that review.
"It is so unfair that influences from other places make it seem worse than it is."
Mr Price said the women found in the bar, alleged to be illegal workers, were actually friends of guests.
Commenting on Mr Lim’s driving offences which were also part of the police's case, translator Jaing Cui said: "They shouldn’t have brought Mr Lim’s personal stuff into this public hearing."
Sergeant Eddie Armstrong, Kingston’s licensing officer, said: “Sitting in one of the small karaoke rooms were four women. These women were spoken to by police through a police interpreter.
“Police carried out immigration checks on these women and none had a legal right to work in the UK.”
The incidents have happened since tough new licensing conditions were put in place earlier this year following an alleged assault outside which left a waiter at the bar with life-threatening head injuries.
- Sung Kuk Mun, 34, is due to stand trial at Kingston Crown Court next February after denying causing grievous bodily harm to waiter Hun Kyu Lee outside the bar on April 17.
The owner of the karaoke bar has been threatened with closure by police several times.
North Korean Sung Chul Lim, 54, was handed a drink-driving conviction in December 2006 but kept driving while disqualified leading to another conviction in July 2007, licensing hearing documents said.
He was served a "brothel warning" notice by police in November 2008.
Closure notices were also served in June, 2009, and April 22, 2011, after licensing conditions were breached such as no working CCTV and the premises staying open up to an hour after its legal allowance.
At a licensing hearing held in May, following an alleged assault outside the bar, police said: “Mr Sung Chul Lim is an irresponsible licence holder with disregard for promoting the four licensing objectives.
“The police are requesting the licensing committee to take the view that Mr Lim has apparently totally ignored previous closures and advice given to him at police meetings.
"The police are also requesting that the committee is to take into consideration that Mr Lim is fully aware that his staff at Forest and Ocean are offering sexual services to its customers."
However councillors allowed the bar to reopen with stringent conditions.
The karaoke bar was told to employ a door supervisor from 8pm to 2am.
It was also ordered to install CCTV in each private room of the bar, which had to be kept for 31 days, recording 24 hours a day.
Mr Lim has previously denied that the karaoke bar and nearby massage parlour were providing sexual services, blaming cultural misunderstandings for the image.
He told the Surrey Comet in January: “It is not sexual services.
"We are definitely not what people think. Police came here to search and didn’t act."
An advert online explicitly stated in English the venue did not offer sexual services.
A 200-strong community petition opposed the massage parlour opening last March.
Opposition centred around concerns it was unsuitable with comings and goings until 4am or 5am and its close proximity to Richard Challoner, Malden Manor and Malden Parochial Church of England School.
The police have reported numerous incidents and complaints about the bar since it opened.
The full list of call-outs and allegations was laid bare at the hearing on Tuesday.
* May 9, 2008: Allegation of GBH when the premises were closed * May 25, 2008: Criminal damage believed to be by a person connected to another restaurant * June 26, 2008: Police see a mattress/bed in the building * November 2008: Five intelligence reports made claiming the premises was being used as a brothel * May and June 2009: More intelligence reports alleging the premises to be a brothel * May 16, 2009: Police search venue for vulnerable children and find no CCTV leading to it being in breach of licensing conditions * 30 July, 2009: Woman alleges she was forced to perform sex act. Later drops allegation * August 15, 2009 & November 24, 2009: Police called out to disturbances at venue * August 18, 2010: Police conduct licensing visit and a number of young women exit when officers arrive. Evidence of smoking inside venue * September 2010: More intelligence claims of brothel use, illegal immigrants and operating outside permitted hours * January and March 2011: Intelligence claims of lots of men attending the bar in the early hours of the morning * April 17, 2011: Man found outside the bar with life-threatening head injuries * April 17: During investigation police find CCTV which appears to show woman performing sex act.
* April 22, 2011: Man arrested inside bar with possession of bank cards not in his name. Two people, one of them a waitress, arrested suspected of breaching immigration status. Bar closed * Another member of staff arrested on suspicion of theft * April 27, 2011: Intelligence that bar has been advertising in Korean newspaper as open until 2.30am, an hour after it was supposed to close.
It also claimed the venue was advertising sexual services in a Chinese newspaper * May 4, 2011: Intelligence that massage parlour was offering sexual services for between £40 and £50
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