Former publican sues Guinness over KKK poster

A British county court judge hearing a case in which a former pub landlord is suing Guinness for damages has found himself watching a video of a stripper gyrating on a dining chair.

Judge John Phipps was viewing video footage of cinema advertising by Guinness which included scenes of a stripper wearing only a bra, knickers and suspenders and dancing on the chair.

The tape was shown as part of a case at St Helens County Court in which a former pub landlord is suing Guinness for damages, claiming an allegedly racist poster for advertising the brewery giant ruined his business.

Peter Doherty claims the poster, showing an image of a Ku Klux Klan rally, led to a student boycott of his Liverpool city centre pub the Stag's Head.

The poster, which Mr Doherty says was put up inside his pub by a Guinness sales representative in September 1997, while he was away, was part of an advertising campaign by the brewery firm based on the theme "Not everything in black and white makes sense".

The campaign focused on fabricated statistics and the poster was a reference to a cinema advertisement which showed a Ku Klux Klan rally with the comment "44% of Ku Klux Klan members were delivered by a black midwife".

The videotape showing the stripper scene was part of an advertisement which included the fabricated statistic "36% of strippers had a convent education".

Mr Doherty, 43, of Kensington, Liverpool, claims that because the Ku Klux Klan poster showed the Klan image but did not display the statistic, it could be interpreted as racist.

He told Judge Phipps: "I was disgusted. The pub was right next to the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, and a lot of my customers were students from ethnic minorities. "

Guinness is contesting the action and the case is expected to last five days.