A PUBLICAN has been left with a legal bill of almost £7,000 after being caught showing a Premier League football match using an Albanian TV card.

Investigators were called in after reports that the Dog and Partridge, in Market Street, Whitworth, was televising games using a Digitalb subscription, Reedley magistrates were told.

Digtalb holds the Albanian licence for showing live Premier League football but it is illegal to transmit their broadcasts in the UK.

An undercover official visited the puband witnessed a Manchester United versus Middlesbrough match being broadcast.

The court heard the pub was visited by the official and warned them about using foreign satellite broadcasting services to transmit Premiership games.

But when the official, Jim Farran, visited the same premises again a fortnight later, he witnessed a Manchester United versus Hull City being broadcast using the same method.

Media Protection Services, the private agency which investigates television copyright breaches on behalf of the Premier League, took three people to court over the decoder card con.

These were landlady Paula Wright, formerly of Market Street, Whitworth, and designated premises supervisors Colin Hoyle, also of Market Street, and Caroline Radford, of Thorburn Drive, Whitworth.

Each denied dishonestly receiving a programme for broadcast.

Hoyle and Radford were cleared.

But Wright, now of The Highland pub, Heywood, was found guilty, in her absence, and fined £525 with £6,236 costs.

Ben Leech, defending Radford and Hoyle, said when concerns were raised they approached the pub’s management company.

But the pair were reassured that they were permitted to show the games.