Sports hero sacked by Edinburgh pub accused of posing as lawyer and hosting sleazy strip show in cellar
A DISGRACED sporting star has been sacked from running one of Edinburgh’s most popular student bars after being accused of posing as a lawyer and hosting a sleazy strip show in the basement.
National pub operator Star Pubs & Bars has called time on Irishman Kevin McGourty and his partner Anushka Ponniah’s management of The Earl of Marchmont.
Bosses of the pub chain stepped in after it was revealed McGourty had been convicted of harassing a female solicitor and had been placed on probation for 18 months.
He is also under investigation for allegedly posing as a solicitor in a Glasgow court case.
A spokesperson for Star Pubs & Bars confirmed: “The Earl of Marchmont in Edinburgh was leased to an independent operator on a temporary basis.
“Following their departure, we have appointed a new operator to take over the running of the pub.”
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It’s since been claimed that during his short time in charge of the bar, the former Gaelic football and hurling star and his partner breached a host of licensing regulations by throwing a sleazy strip show in the basement – shocking early Saturday evening regulars.
CCTV footage captured a group of around 12 middle-aged men descending into the cellar, drinks in hand, to watch the strip show after the “stag” refused to go along with the original plan for the performance to take place in the corner of the bar.
Attempts to contact McGourty were unsuccessful, but his partner, Anushka Ponniah, denied all knowledge of the strip show when confronted.
She said: “I’ve never heard anything about that, so I have no idea where this has come from.
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“Kevin, being my partner, I’m sure he would have told me something like that.
"It’s not something that he would do, he doesn’t even go to strip clubs himself.
“At that time, we did have five members of staff and for all I know it could have been any member of my staff [who organised it].”
McGourty, 41, who comes from a famous Antrim Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) family, won a Gaelic football All-Ireland title in 2010 when he was an integral part of the St Gall’s team which secured their first championship title at a packed Croke Park.
Off the pitch, he was accused of sending hundreds of texts, emails and making phone calls to his victim, and turned up at family celebrations which caused the woman “distress and upset”.
He threatened to send an explicit photograph and video of the woman to her brother and father if she did not speak to him.
He denied all of the charges, alleged to have taken place between April and May 2017, but in 2018 he plead guilty to disclosing a sexual photograph of his victim and of harassing her over a two-month period.
He was sentenced to 18 months’ probation and a five-year restraining order prevented him from going within 30 metres of the woman or her brother, to whom he sent the photograph.
McGourty, who also goes by the name of Caoimhean MacDhorchaidh, is also under investigation after it was claimed he had posed as a solicitor in a Glasgow court when he attempted to represent an accused person at Glasgow Justice of the Peace Court.
It is a criminal offence for an unqualified person to pretend to be a solicitor and The Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service later confirmed that there was no record of Caiomhean MacDhorchaidh or his firm on the Roll of Solicitors.
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A spokesman for the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service said: “The Procurator Fiscal is considering this incident and is liaising with the Law Society of Scotland and Police Scotland.”
The Earl of Marchmont is now being run by its previous management who marked the occasion with a Facebook post which said: “We’re not going to discuss the reasons why we’re back, but back we are!”