BOXING champ Ady Lewis has been stitched up by Bury's judges.

The flyweight supremo wants to defend his crown in his home town in what would be Bury's first British title fight.

But despite promises to the contrary, he is being kept in the neutral corner waiting for the verdict.

Professional boxing has been banned in Bury since the death of James Murray in Glasgow in 1995.

Council leader Derek Boden, who chairs the policy and resources committee, told the Bury Times this week that Wednesday's meeting would give a "clear lead" to the full council on whether to allow boxing.

But instead, members simply passed the whole matter up without debate, despite the pleas of Ady's manager Mr Stuart Andrews and the sole Tory councillor David Higgin.

Coun Boden said the most appropriate place was the council meeting on July 23.

"My personal view is that we do have sufficient evidence in front of us to arrive at a decision," he said. "But all the councillors are entitled to and should play a part in this decision."

The decision was previously postponed in April because councillors said they were too busy fighting the General Election.

But a furious Mr Andrews described the night's events as "absolutely ridiculous".

"They've done completely nothing, like the last meeting, but this time they didn't have the excuse of an election.

"I have come here five times now and nothing has come out of it."

Mr Andrews is hoping to bring along officials from the British Boxing Board of Control to the council meeting to argue their case. "Two of our lads, Ady and David Clavering, live in Bury. I would be really sick for them if we could not box in Bury," he added.

Ady (21), known as the Mighty Atom, won the title in January to become Bury's first holder of a coveted Lonsdale Belt, and has defended it since. A third victory would give him outright ownership of a belt.

Afterwards, Coun Boden said: "It became clear to me after a while that if we are really going to have a debate then we should not prejudice the whole thing by coming to a recommendation beforehand.

"I'm sorry if Mr Andrews feels he has been misled, but I think we did the right thing tonight. We will have a decision on July 23."

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.