Waitrose

babyemily

I am really disgusted by Waitrose. An incident happened at Waitrose the other day. A mum and her son were in the cafe. Her son has special needs and was making some noise although no more noise then the average child I must add. The child is 7 and has low functioning autism. A woman in the cafe approached the mum and told her to keep her "animal under control" In full hearing of everybody. When the mum defended her child she was called scum!
Waitroses response to this was;
The woman who had called this child an animal was given a free cup of coffee to help her calm down
The mum was thrown out of Waitrose as she asked them to ring the Police. Waitrose refused to allow her on the premises whilst she phoned the Police. She complained to Head Office and was offered a free coffee too. She does not want a free coffee she wants an apology. Today Waitrose have again offered her a free coffee but no apology. Many people have voiced an opinion on facebook on Waitrose's wall yet they have not replied. As a mum to children with ASD this has really annoyed me, I would be horrified if I was told to shut my animal up in reference to my child and I would be even more horrified had the person who said it been given a free coffee!!:mad:

bromleymum

This seems very odd.

Surely Waitrose would not placate a woman who had been so rude? I know there are two sides to every story but to call a child an "animal" is unbelievable.

What Waitrose store are we talking about? I am shocked at the shop's behaviour.

babyemily

I am shocked too, I quite like Waitrose I just cant afford to shop there. It is Waitrose in Kingsthorpe Northampton. Heres a link to their Facebook page - There are some valid posts, some jumping on the band wagon posts too... and some very sensible posts regarding waiting on a proper reply. But there are always people who go all out with the pitchfork!

http://www.facebook.com/Waitrose?sk=wall

fwor

An unpleasant incident for sure, but isn't this being a bit harsh on Waitrose? I'm not really sure what the person is expecting an apology for!

Let's assume that Waitrose staff encountered this dispute after it had got under way. There doesn't seem to be any magic way for them to know for sure what actually happened - they probably just heard allegations from both sides. They attempt to placate - possibly just offering a drink to the person who is most hysterical - it just makes matters worse, so they ask both parties to leave.

The fact is that it's their property and they can decide if they want people causing trouble to leave. If they allow the person to stay in-store while the police are called then they have to commit staff to dealing with it, and if they are doing that they can't be doing other things, such as dealing with customer enquiries.

Azari

I agree that the person who called the child an animal may have been out of order - assuming that she was aware that the behaviour of the child was caused by some medical/congenital condition and did not merely perceive a badly behaved child being allowed to run wild - but I can't really see the purpose of trying to get the police involved. It may be reprehensible to call someone an animal but it's not, to the best of my knowledge, illegal - provided that it is based on their behaviour and not, for example, their race.

sarahg1969

Azari wrote: »

I agree that the person who called the child an animal may have been out of order - assuming that she was aware that the behaviour of the child was caused by some medical/congenital condition and did not merely perceive a badly behaved child being allowed to run wild - but I can't really see the purpose of trying to get the police involved. It may be reprehensible to call someone an animal but it's not, to the best of my knowledge, illegal - provided that it is based on their behaviour and not, for example, their race.

I think there is an argument that it is based around the child's disaility, though.

Not keen on the villagers out with their torches and pitchforks on facebook, though.

They don't seem to understand that, if the matter has been referred to the police, it's likely that Waitrose will want to take some advice before they start posting comments in an open forum.

fwor

It certainly appears to be a classic case of misdirected anger - as Azari says, there doesn't seem to be any case for police action, and chasing Waitrose doesn't seem to be heading in any useful direction. Why exactly does the victim want an apology from Waitrose?

As a matter of interest, a question to the OP: Do you actually know the person involved in this incident?

babyemily

Sorry, Just got in. Yes I do know the person but through SEN ie: schools etc... The reason the police are involved is that it was racially motivated, apparently being Asian means you are rearing animals!! NOT a point I would ever agree with or condone. The police have now taken all CCTV evidence and are doing their job. I would imagine Waitrose are doing their own investigation. I totally agree that there are some on Facebook who have taken the lynch mob mentality, they are doing no favours to anyone and half of them dont even know what they are commenting on. The reason it went to Facebook is that Waitrose would not deal with it any other way. They told mum and son to leave the store! Head Office did not want to get involved and Mum wants an apology for being made to feel like they had done wrong. It all could have been handled better.
Overlord: It is very obvious the child is disabled in answer to your post

Yorkie1

If the police are now investigating then this really should not be discussed openly on a public forum or on facebook.

RadoJo

Was the race of the child actually mentioned by the person complaining?

Hibernian0

Babyemily :- Did YOU witness this incident ?