Women - and men too - should be able to feel safer during a night on the town after a borough council agreed all pubs and clubs must sign up to the Ask For Angela campaign.

Tonbridge and Malling council will, in future, make it a condition of having a premises licence that the staff in all pubs and clubs are trained to respond to the safety code words.

The change in the licensing rules was proposed by Cllr Anna Cope (Green), a teacher at a local girls’ secondary school, who explained the scheme.

She said: “Ask for Angela is a charity set up in the name of a woman who died through violence in 2012.

“It helps mostly women, but it is not only for women.

“So if somebody fears their drink has been spiked, or someone is harassing them, they feel unsafe, or they turn up to meet someone who turns out to be someone different, they can ask for help.

“They can go to the bar staff and say ‘Is Angela here?, and the staff will then know that they are in difficulty.”

She said the scheme had been running since 2016, with bars often placing posters advising of the Ask for Angela code phrase in the toilets, but a survey had found that 80% of staff in such premises hadn’t been properly trained in how to respond, so that a request for help often went unanswered.

Cllr Cope said: “What I’d like to see is that when licensed premises are having their licence renewed, or when a new premises is opening and applying for a licence, that part of the requirement of that licence is that all the staff are trained to properly respond to Ask for Angela.”

She said: “The foundation of a good night out is that people feel safe.

“I want there to be a vibrant pub and bar scene across Tonbridge and Malling, but I also work with girls turning 18 and I hear some horror stories.

“If we can make this really simple action that will help people feel safe, this is absolutely something worth doing.”

Cllr Cope said she had spoken to bar owners in Tonbridge who were fully supportive, with one even offering his establishment as a training centre.

She said: “This is actually in the best interests of our bars and pubs and is also something that has the full support of the police.”

Anthony Garnett, the head of service for licensing, said the borough could go further and ask the borough’s 624 cab drivers to sign up to the scheme too.

All councillors were keen to see the change.

Cllr Bill Banks said it had his “absolute support” and said that whenever councillors visited licensed premises themselves, they should test the staff to ensure that they knew what to do.

Mr Garnett said the borough’s anti-social behaviour team would also be tasked to check that staff had been properly trained.

The committee chairman, Cllr Colin Williams, said: “This is such a good idea, I can’t think why we haven’t done it years ago.”

The committee voted unanimously to make changes to its licensing policy, which would require staff to be trained in the future so that, on hearing the code phrase, they would understand that the person needed support and would respond in an appropriate, discreet way.

That might mean offering the customer an alternative way out of the venue, calling them a taxi, reuniting them with a friend, or in a more serious situation, alerting the venue security or the police.

The council will also make appropriate posters available for all premises to display.

The policy is named after Angela Crompton, who was killed by her husband, Thomas, who attacked her with a hammer in a row over decorating their home in Norwich. He was convicted only of manslaughter and was sentenced to seven-and-a-half years in jail.