No Licence, No Record, No Raffle Permission: What the FOI Revealed

Contrary to her earlier claim at the Blackwood shop of holding a raffle and lottery licence, today’s FOI (Freedom of Information) release from Caerphilly Council stated otherwise. Our request is as follows:

Could you please provide any documents related to licenses, contracts, fees, or similar matters regarding the business located at Unit 13-15, The Market Place, Blackwood, NP12 1AU, operating under the name “Jaynes Baby Bank” and/or any related entities?

The Corporate Information Governance Unit responded with the following:

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT 2000 – INFORMATION REQUEST

Thank you for your request for information received on 30th June 2025. We have considered your request and enclose the following information –

Could you please provide any documents related to licenses, contracts, fees, or similar matters regarding the business located at Unit 13-15, The Market Place, Blackwood, NP12 1AU, operating under the name “Jaynes Baby Bank” and/or any related entities (01.10.23 to 10.07.25)?

Information not held.

We confirm that there have been no businesses located at Unit 13-15, The Market Place, Blackwood during the period 01.10.23 to 10.07.25 that held any licences issued by our Licensing Department.

Yours sincerely

Corporate Information Governance Unit

The most notable takeaway is: “We confirm that there have been no businesses located at Unit 13–15, The Market Place, Blackwood during the period 01/10/23 to 10/07/25 that held any licences issued by our Licensing Department.” This contradicts previous claims made by JBB, in which Carrie-Anne stated (you can watch the video here):

So this hater is the one that posts the website online.

Thank you for doing that today, Sherlock, because it means that I can clarify stuff.

We are registered food banks within Caerphilly County Council, whether they recommend us or not.

That is supporting us by allowing us to trade as a food bank and trade as shops.

So they are supporting us.

If they weren’t supporting us, we wouldn’t be said that we haven’t got a raffle license or lottery license.

We do have a raffle license and a lottery license, so your investigation skills are below par, is what I can say there.

But thank you for doing the post today, Sherlock.

TikTok, TikTok.

Because you posted it with your email address on it.

TikTok, TikTok, Sherlock.

Other claims made in previous videos dated 01/07/2025 include:

“We run raffles, we do stuff, we do it all above board. We’ve got to renew our raffle licence. That’s not fraudulent collection of public donations.”

However, if we search our transcript archive, we can find numerous instances of gambling items being conducted without a licence.

It’s worth noting that, should Carrie-Anne Ridsdale share this image, it originates from the evicted property in Aberbargoed and holds no legal validity for use across multiple retail premises. Under the Gambling Act, it is a breach to operate a lottery or raffle using a licence on a property that is not officially registered. Each premises would require its own appropriate registration.

As revealed through our Freedom of Information request, there are neither historical nor active licences associated with the former Blackwood property. This raises an important question: where did the proceeds from the scratch cards and raffles actually go? We may never know.

Sherlock