A family wrongly accused of leaving a restaurant without paying their £150 bill have been awarded £75,000 in damages.
The Horse and Jockey in Tideswell, Derbyshire, made a public post on Facebook claiming Peter and Ann McGirr and their two children failed to pay for their food.
The post featured CCTV images of the diners, which, along with theaccusations, were then shared in four press reports.
The family, who ate two £27 10oz ribeye steaks two £15.25 Derbyshire gammon steaks and drank several beers at the pub in July last year, did in fact pay for their meal.
It turned out a member of staff had taken a card payment but forgotten to ring the transaction through the till.
Belfast Crown Court heard on Friday that the family, from County Tyrone, Northern Ireland, had suffered significant embarrassment and reputational damage.
They sued the pub for libel on the basis of the ‘serious and defamatory accusations’, which included calling them ‘dine and dashers’.
Peter Girvan, the barrister representing the family, told the court: ‘These articles contained serious and defamatory accusations that the plaintiffs had engaged in dishonest and criminal conduct by deliberately absconding without settling a bill of approximately £150.
The Horse and Jockey have agreed to pay £75,000 to the family (Picture: Google street view)
‘The allegations were entirely false. The plaintiffs had not engaged in any such conduct, and the statements made by the defendants had no factual basis.’
The pub agreed to pay £75,000 in damages as well as the family’s legal costs as part of a settlement.
It accepted there was ‘no basis whatsoever’ for the allegations and apologised, the court heard.
Reading a statement on the family’s behalf, their solicitor Darragh Carney, said they had been ‘vindicated’ and were ‘very satisfied with the settlement’.
The pub later admitted they had made a mistake and the family had paid the bill (Picture: Facebook/ Horse and Jockey)
After the incident, the pub blamed the mistake on an ‘inexperienced member of staff’ who was said to have taken payment via a card machine but not printed the bill on the till.
In a statement, it said: ‘We want to sincerely apologise to the people involved because we have now learnt that they did in fact pay for their meal.
‘There was no dishonesty involved from our staff, it was an honest mistake but we have dismissed the member of staff responsible for the error.’
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