A FORMER theatre boss in Rossendale has been cleared of damaging the entrance to the auditorium he used to run after prosecutors dropped the case against him.

Ex-Bacup Operatic and Dramatic Society director Simon Parker, 46, had always maintained he was well within his rights to try and gain access to the Royal Court Theatre in May.

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He had been ousted from his posts as the venue’s musical director and youth theatre chief by the society’s charity committee amid a row over an unpaid £50,000 energy bill.

But when Mr Parker tried to gain entry to the Victorian theatre, after the locks had been changed by the committee, he was spoken to by Lancashire Police, on suspicion of causing criminal damage totalling £625 to the door, at the Henrietta Street stalls entrance to the building.

Mr Parker, of Millar Barn Lane, Waterfoot, had denied the damage offence and was set to stand trial before a district judge at Burnley Magistrates Court yesterday.

But prosecutor Phillipa White offered no evidence, when the case was called on, and a formal not guilty verdict was entered.

An earlier hearing was told by John Rusius, Mr Parker’s defence solicitor, that his client would argue that he was within his rights to carry out works on the theatre doors.

“If anyone has done anything wrong, in his view, then it is the society who did not have permission to do what they have done,” said Mr Rusius.

The court heard that if it was found that Mr Parker had acted unreasonably, he would have the permission of the only other nominated director at the time, his partner Claire Round.

The society has been in limbo since it emerged that there was a £32,126 owing to Eon, and £21,197 was owed to a gas supplier. The electricity meter was removed after the first performance of a Sound of Music production in early May.

Volunteers are working to keep the theatre alive and last week staged a youth production at the New Millennium Theatre in Waterfoot as a stopgap measure.