A nightclub where police claim more than 40% of all violent crime in Medway takes place came under the spotlight in a licensing review.

Police produced a litany of assaults and mobile phone thefts as they pushed for tougher licensing measures to prevent crime at Rochester’s Casino Rooms.

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While the nightclub has agreed to several updated conditions regarding CCTV, staff training, drug policies and its door control policy, owner Aaron Stone – also a director of the Safer Medway Partnership – said demands to install ID scanners and to stop him selling drinks in bottles were a step too far.

Barristers representing both sides clashed at the hearing at Gun Wharf on Tuesday, with police barrister James Rankin citing two main incidents involving bottles.

“A glass injury is difficult to stitch up and causes permanent scarring. There have been no injuries that relate to the loss of an eye or worse, but it’s a matter of time as far as the police are concerned”- Police barrister James Rankin

In the first, on Christmas Eve 2015, an off-duty PCSO had his jaw broken by an old acquaintance with a grudge and had to have metal plates inserted into his jaw, while a second victim who attempted to intervene had been hit on the head with a bottle.

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In another incident, a woman had been cut across the forehead after another woman swiped a number of glasses and bottles off a table.

Mr Rankin said: “A glass injury is difficult to stitch up and causes permanent scarring. There have been no injuries that relate to the loss of an eye or worse, but it’s a matter of time as far as the police are concerned.”

But Casino Rooms solicitor Leo Charalambides said the evidence was weak – saying it was not certain whether a bottle had been used, and that neither incident could be called “glassing”.

Mr Rankin cited a Freedom of Information request that showed 54 violent incidents at the Casino Rooms over a 12-month period, accounting for “41% of all violent crime in Medway”. But Mr Charalambides dismissed the figure as “lies, damned lies and statistics”, saying other sets of figures showed less actual crime occurring at the premises.

He said: “Here we have an operation that has been here for over 20 years, run by the same people. These people run other places in the area. They also invest in the area.

“They want a well run nighttime economy. They, like you, are trying to encourage people into the area.”

Principally, he suggested, the evidence did not show “glassing” was a problem. The venue was already using polycarbonate or toughened glass vessels – which was requested by police under the newly proposed conditions – and the police had failed to offer significant examples of people being injured by bottles.

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He also dismissed calls for an ID scanner, saying a proportion of reported phone thefts – there had been 25 in the past six months according to police – might be down to people misplacing phones, in contrast to the police assertion that thieves were targeting the club.

Medway Council’s licensing panel refused to impose the condition for an ID scanner. The proposed condition on drinks vessels was amended to allow the Casino Rooms to continue selling bottled drinks, while the stipulation for drinks vessels to be made of polycarbonate or toughened glass remained.