Door staff at Chesterfield bar where soldier died in 'bottle attack' to wear body-worn cameras

Joseph Robotham, 23, was taken to hospital following an incident outside Vibe bar in Holywell Street during the early hours of February 8.

He sadly died at Sheffield’s Royal Hallamshire Hospital the following night.

His family have spoken of their grief at losing the popular 23-year-old, who served in the 1st Battalion The Mercian Regiment for four years and had completed exercises in Canada, Lithuania and Oman.

In a post on their Facebook page, Vibe Bar offered their sincere condolences to Joseph’s family, and announced a number of new security measures.

The statement read: “As we are certain you are all aware, in the early hours of Saturday 8th February the life of Joseph Robotham was taken just outside of our venue in a callous and cowardly attack. We would like to offer our most sincere condolences, not only his family, but to all who knew him. Out of respect to his family and friends we have not made a statement until now to allow them chance to grieve for their tragic loss.

“In light of this tragic event, we have made the decision to stay closed until the end of this month. The safety of our customers is our top priority and we have implemented a series of voluntary measures to further improve upon our existing policies.

“We have always served wines, spirits and shots in polycarbonate or disposable plastics. We will now be exclusively using polycarbonate and plastics to serve all drinks and will be the first venue in Chesterfield to do so.

“Our door team will be wearing hi-visibility jackets at all times to make them easily identifiable.

“There will be an increase in random searches at the door and we will continue to use body wands on entry.

“Members of our door team will be fitted with body worn cameras at all times.

“We will be reducing our closing time to 5am and last entry will be at 4am.

“We have over 40 high definition CCTV cameras covering every square inch of the premises both inside and out. We will increase both internal and external monitoring of these cameras during trading hours.

“We will continue to use challenge 25 with a strict no ID no entry in place.

“We will continue our policy on a zero tolerance to drugs, violence and abusive behaviour.

“We have been in full co-operation with the authorities during this investigation and will continue to be.

“If anyone has any concerns or questions regarding the measures we have put into place, or indeed any suggestions we would kindly ask that you inbox us directly and we will respond as soon as we can.

“We will reopen at midnight on Saturday 29th February and look forward to seeing you all then.”

More than £3,000 has been donated to an online fundraising page set up in Joseph’s memory to help cover the cost of his funeral.