Ashley Blake life story: Day three

Sep 5 2009 by Maureen Messent

ASHLEY’S horror started with a birthday party held at The Place 2 B for 18-year-old waitress Rachel’s birthday.

She’d asked to celebrate there and, at first, Ashley and Jess had refused – they knew the difficulties of deciding who was of age to drink and who was too young to serve when the bar was packed with youngsters.

Then they relented because they reckoned Rachel, who’d been with them since she was 16, was a staff asset.

Everything went well. The party started at 7.30pm with everyone in good spirits.

Then, at 2am, the lights went down and the celebrants began to walk towards the car park.

Ashley picks up his side of the story: “One lad was moaning that his glass had been taken before he’d finished his drink, he wasn’t aggressive and off he went.

“Then a regular punched the chap moaning about his unfinished beer and knocked him out, although I didn’t see this.

“Then the punched kid’s mates attacked the regular and knocked him to the ground,” he claimed.

“He was dragged back to the restaurant and the group tried to follow him in to continue the attack.

“Mario, my Albanian doorman, tried to calm things down but, because we wouldn’t let them in, they started shoving and pushing. We were trying to push them back.

“By this time they were calling Mario ‘Polish Scum’ and me a ‘Nigger’ and ‘black bastard’.

“There were about 25 to 30 of them and they picked up glasses and bottles from the smoking area and chucked them at us.

“I went to tell Matt to call the police and I got the pole we kept behind the bar to secure the front door.

“When I got back to Mario, he was surrounded and holding a garden table like a shield.