After complaining to your Customer Services – their reply which totally ignored my complaints ended with “we consider this matter closed and will not be entering into any other communication regarding this issue”. Well they might consider it closed – but I don’t!

The Wetherspoon’s chain is like any other chain; only as strong as its weakest link – it appears that there are too many weak links… one that definitely needs attention is the refusal to listen to genuine complaints, this is not just at pub manager level but extends to your head office. Before outlining my complaint let me give you a piece of advice that applies to any business, large or small: A satisfied customer will tell their friends – a dissatisfied (EX)-customer will tell EVERYONE! Which is what I intend doing until my genuine complaint is dealt with.

I requested to speak to the manager in The Calverts Court in Stockport after, for the second time that evening, being treated rudely by a barmaid. His reaction was to start concocting a story that I had offended another barmaid. My offer to personally apologise if I had inadvertently offended anyone was rejected. You might ask WHY if I had inadvertently upset a barmaid he hadn’t spoken to me BEFORE I wished to lodge a complaint against another? He really “lost it” when to describe the one I wished to complain about I used the word “plumpish” (not in her hearing) he knew exactly who I meant so it was an appropriate adjective. I was escorted from the premises in a humiliating manner, I requested that CCTV footage was NOT deleted as I believed it could support my complaint. I also asked his name he refused his surname but said his name was Patrick. (He did NOT commit himself to barring me – I actually asked – but I barred myself, as have some of my friends).

Twenty days later I was passing the Calverts Court and saw Patrick outside, to support my complaint against a person whose name I didn’t know I decided to take a picture he asked what I was doing, that was before my pocket camera started recording. The un-edited video will show what happened.

Here are the main points:

I was not on Wetherspoon’s property I was completely on the public footpath. I had no intention of entering – I was going elsewhere.

I explained my reason for using the camera.

He made what is regarded as a very abusive finger signal.

He then approached and took a swing at me (I was entirely on the public footpath and quite within my rights to film). He then, probably not realising it was a video camera (recording sound), beat a hasty retreat, doubling the number of barmaids he had previously alleged I had made cry, as he did so.(at the time I thought he’d said “you’re barred” as did also a police officer who later watched the video – he was speaking with his back to me and I was shaken up by what had just happened).

He said I had the camera in his face (the closest his face came to my camera was when he put it there). It was on full zoom.

He asked me *quote* “Why don’t you go and have a wank off?”.

He tried to say he wasn’t rude – in view of the way he acted and what he was willing to say on camera, imagine what he’s like when he isn’t.

He had defied Wetherspoon’s code of conduct (Section 1.8.3) by deleting the video within 30 days (which could have supported my complaints) – or he was lying – his concern regarding what that video might have shown is apparent. His reaction also shows he recalled me asking for it to be kept.

The way he is trying to “play to the gallery” with arriving customers and the boys who were to the left, even getting others to wave at the camera is to say the very least “CHILDISH” but a great advertisement for your premises – when a manager behaves as he does in full view of a busy public footpath.

Well thanks to YouTube his actions (and the lack of action by your head office) this incident is here for the world to see. As I said near the start “a dissatisfied customer tells everyone!”.

I feel sure many will be interested to see how a person aged over seventy, not in good health, and on a public footpath was treated by one of your employees.

Google Searching “Outside Calverts Court YouTube” should find it. You’ll know if the thumbnail shows a Wetherspoon’s manager showing his middle finger that you’ve got the correct one.

Incidentally on the first night – I’d had less than one pint of Ruddles – on the night of my video I hadn’t had any drink at all. So I was not “drink fueled” I can’t answer for Patrick.