High Court finds JD Weatherspoon’s pub chain guilty of discriminating against Travellers
• JD Wetherspoon plc, with over 930 pubs in the UK, guilty of direct racial discrimination against Irish Travellers and associates
• Individual Travellers and The Traveller Movement win judicial declaration of unlawful race discrimination for refusal of entry to a pub
• Pub Chain has to pay £3,000 damages to each Traveller and associates (total of £24,000)
The Traveller Movement charity has won a seminal victory in the High Court after Justice Hand ruled that a JD Weatherspoon’s pub in North London acted illegally when it refused entry to Travellers on the grounds of their race. The incident happened in November 2011 at the Coronet on Holloway Road when a group of delegates from the Traveller Movement’s annual conference attempted to enter the pub but were stopped by door staff.
The delegates included Travellers, a police inspector, a barrister and a priest, all of whom were claimants in the case. The group was only allowed to enter the pub to speak to the manager when Inspector Watson produced his police identity card – and only on condition that he was responsible for the group.
The Traveller Movement instructed Howe & Co Solicitors to take the class action against the Coronet, under discrimination legislation.
The judge found (para 149 of his 91 page judgment) that the thinking of Weatherspoon’s 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”
The Court found that the pub chain had breached the Equality Act 2010, in the racially discriminatory way in which it had refused service to the Travellers and those seeking to enter the pub with them.
Martin Howe, senior partner of Howe and Co Solicitors, was one of the group who were turned away by door staff and was also a claimant in the case, said:
“This judgment will shake to the core all those who engage in racist conduct towards Irish Travellers and Romani Gypsies. The last bastion of ‘acceptable racism’ has come crashing down. Shops, restaurants, supermarkets, hotels, clubs and pubs will now realise that treating Gypsies and Travellers as second–class citizens is an affront to their dignity that is no longer tolerated. Discriminators will pay in damages, in costs and in loss of reputation. This is a watershed day when Gypsies and Travellers no longer have to move on but can hold their heads high in the knowledge that there is equal treatment for all”.
Yvonne MacNamara, CEO of the Traveller Movement said:
“We are overjoyed with today’s decision. Justice has finally been done for those who were turned away from the Coronet pub because they were Travellers, or because they were associated with Travellers. In this day and age it is outrageous that a national pub chain like JD Wetherspoons can carry out such a blatant act of discrimination against members of the Gypsy and Traveller communities, their friends and colleagues,”
“As a national charity who works to promote equality for Gypsies and Travellers across the country, we too often come across members of these communities being refused access to goods and services on the grounds of their ethnicity. We hope Justice Hand’s decision will mark a sea change in the unacceptably high levels of discrimination these communities experience”