JD Wetherspoon, one of Britain’s biggest pub chains, has agreed to pay tens of thousands of pounds in compensation to a group of Irish Travellers and others who were refused service in one of its London pubs five years ago.
The settlement follows a court ruling last year that the group’s pub, The Coronet in north London, discriminated against a group of people attending a conference hosted by the Traveller Movement, an advocacy group, when it denied them entry on November 17th, 2011.
The judge ordered the pub chain to pay £3,000 in compensation to each of the complainants who were refused entry, including a priest, a police officer, a solicitor and a barrister, as well as members of the Irish Traveller and English Gypsy communities.
Wetherspoon appealed, as did the complainants, who wanted the Traveller Movement to receive compensation and for the pub chain to pay their costs.
Out-of-court settlement
In an out-of-court settlement this week, the pub chain agreed to pay a total of £44,000 in damages to be divided between 18 complainants, and to make a donation of £4,000 to the Traveller Movement.
Wetherspoon will also make an undisclosed contribution towards the complainants’ legal costs.
Wetherspoon said it has worked with the Traveller Movement and the Equality and Human Rights Commission to develop revised training in respect of the treatment of various groups, including the Traveller Community, and the parties have given a commitment to collaborate in the future.
“This is the first time in our 37-year history that a case of discrimination for refusal of entry to a Wetherspoon pub has gone to court.
“I apologise to those who were not allowed into the Coronet pub and we have put in place improved training and management systems to try to prevent a recurrence,” Wetherspoon chairman Tim Martin said.
Travellers’ rights campaigners welcomed the settlement, which Yvonne MacNamara, chief executive of the Traveller Movement, said should serve as a warning to other companies.
“We are absolutely delighted that the case is finally settled and I sincerely hope this will be serve as a firm warning to pubs and other service providers across the country that discrimination against Gypsies and Travellers will no longer be tolerated.
“This is a real David vs Goliath story and with any luck will show that no matter how big a company you are, you cannot get away with discrimination,” she said.
Come forward
Helena Kelly, an Irish Traveller who was among those refused entry to The Coronet, said she hoped the settlement would encourage others who faced discrimination to come forward.
“For too long, Travellers and Gypsies have had to accept being refused entry to pubs and other services as a part of life.
“This [case] should be the final nail in the coffin of such discrimination and show that Gypsies and Travellers have the same rights as everyone else.
“Most importantly, I hope this case will encourage other Gypsies and Travellers who experience discrimination to come forward and not be afraid to challenge the perpetrators in court,” she said.
In his ruling last year, Mr Justice Hand said the decision to bar the group in November 2011 was suffused with the stereotypical assumption “that Irish Travellers and English Gypsies cause disorder wherever they go”.
“In my judgment, this is racial stereotyping of those with that ethnic origin. It can be reduced to this crude proposition: whenever Irish Travellers and English Gypsies go to public houses, violent disorder is inevitable because that is how they behave,” he said.
