JD Wetherspoon admits liability in second traveller discrimination case

29 May 2015 by
JD Wetherspoon admits liability in second traveller discrimination case

Pub group JD Wetherspoon has admitted liability in connection with an incident at its pub the Tivoli in Cambridge, where door staff refused entry to three members of the travelling community.

Door staff, along with a member of the pub's management team, refused entry to the individuals following a funeral in the local area, on the grounds that they were travellers.

The group has apologised and offered to pay damages and legal costs to the claimants.

Chairman for JD Wetherspoon, Tim Martin, commented that the company had not intended to act with malice, and attributed the incident to staff error.

He said: "We apologise to the three claimants for the embarrassment and distress caused to them and have offered to pay damages to each of them as well as legal costs. There was no intention by the company to discriminate against these individuals."

"We reiterate that there was no malice intended by the company in either case and Wetherspoon did not have a discriminatory motive. Our pubs serve more than two million customers each week and unfortunately errors by our staff do occur on occasion, notwithstanding our commitment to equal treatment of all customers and staff and the training we provide in this area."

The Cambridge case was the second brought against the pub company by the travelling community after an incident in 2011 at the Coronet pub in north London, in which a group of travellers received compensation after being refused entry following a traveller conference next door to the pub.

Martin explained that the company would be addressing the case in future staff training. He said: "We will be redoubling our efforts to ensure that we, as a company, and our staff, learn from these mistakes."

JD Wetherspoon in £24,000 traveller discrimination payout >>

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