Raise the Colours founder Billy Allison charged with murder of bar owner

A founding member of Raise the colors who has been stringing up flags on lamp posts across the UK, has been charged with the murder of a pub owner.

Matt O’Gara died in hospital three days after reportedly being punched in the Ricco and Loren bar in Market Street in Lichfield, Staffordshire, at 11.25pm on Sunday.

Billy Allison, 36, from Solihull, was arrested just after 5am on Monday.

He has been charged with murder and Section 18 grievous bodily harm with intent.

The force said the second victim in the assault was taken to hospital but has since been discharged.

Allison is a member of Raise the colors and Operation Stop The Boats, a movement that crowdfunds so activists can hoist the Union Flag and the St George’s Cross across UK town centers.

Wearing a blue long-sleeved top, Allison, of Cropthorne Road in Shirley, Solihull, West Midlands, appeared before Judge Avik Mukherjee for an eight-minute hearing on Thursday and spoke only to confirm his name when asked by the court clerk.

The judge told the defendant, who stood with his hands clasped in front of him, he would next appear in court in September for a plea and trial preparation hearing and would be remanded into custody.

He said: ‘Billy Allison, will you stand please.

‘Your next hearing is the first of September and you will be produced to court for that hearing.’

Of his trial, the judge said: ‘You have an obligation to come.

‘You are expected to be here every day for your trial.’

Allison nodded and was taken back down to the cells by a custody officer following the hearing.

It came after the family of Mr O’Gara, a director of The Plough pub in the village of Huddlesford, said they would ‘never get over his death.

‘My beautiful son taken away from us so suddenly,’ his mother said.

‘Dad and me will never get over this. You were too young to leave us. Forever in our hearts.’

His niece Jade added: ‘My first best friend and my uncle. I will forever keep saying you were the BEST person.’

Another posted on Facebook: ‘My beautiful boy forever loved and missed always.’

The court heard a date for trial, expected to last two weeks, was set for October 26.