Wetherspoon manager sacked after giving discount on pub's halloumi fries

A former JD Wetherspoon pub manager has triumphed in an employment tribunalafter being sacked for giving a colleague a 50 per cent food discount.

Peter Castagna-Davies was shown the door from his shift leader role at the Pontlottyn pub in Abertillery, Wales, despite having a spotless record for more than 22 years. Mr Castagna-Davies had rung up two portions of halloumi fries, two servings of chicken breast bites, and two cans of Monster energy drink for kitchen worker Noah Gardiner, applying the half-price discount for staff on shift.

An internal probe concluded that he had violated policy by letting Mr Gardiner purchase "excessive products" at the 50 per cent rate and take the food home.

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The Cardiff employment tribunal was told that Mr Castagna-Davies was unaware that just two minutes before he approved the items, Mr Gardiner had used a different manager's till key to get another free meal for himself – chicken breast bites and a can of Monster Punch.

Wetherspoon's disciplinary chairman Chris Jenkins decided to sack Mr Castagna-Davies, telling him: "Shortly before you processed Noah's 50 per cent on-shift discount he had processed through the till his own staff feeding meal, some two hours after his break when he had consumed it, which you had no knowledge of him doing so or even going on his break," reports Wales Online.

"I find this both worrying and surprising that, as the duty manager with so few staff to manage on the shift in question, you had no knowledge or control over what was going on."

Two months prior to the unfortunate discount incident – which occurred at 8.04pm on 31 January 2024 – the pub chain had internally circulated rules stating that only one item from the food menu and one soft drink were available for free to employees during their shift.

Staff wishing to add extra items could purchase them at half price, and if they wanted to take food home, the discount would be limited to 20 per cent. Sarah Newton, the manager of Pontlottyn, had messaged the pub's employee group chat saying the company was "cracking down" because staff at other pubs had been taking multiple 50 per cent orders home.

She cautioned that there had been instances where misuse of the discount had led to disciplinary investigations. During the tribunal, Wetherspoon's witnesses stated there had been "a crackdown on the 50 per cent discount because staff had been caught taking food home to feed their whole family". They alleged that the business had incurred "significant" costs, which prompted it to adopt a "corporate zero-tolerance attitude towards abuse of the staff discount".

Wetherspoon utilises a system called IntelliQ to flag potential staff fraud. A week after the discount was approved by Mr Castagna-Davies, the system raised an alarm over the transaction. Ms Newton told him "mistakes happen" but warned him to be careful as the company was "really cracking down on it". Mr Castagna-Davies expressed disappointment in himself for the error.

Keri Blanchard, an investigating manager, interviewed Mr Gardiner who claimed he had prepared the food himself. When asked if he had consumed his initial free meal on-site, he responded: "I should've yeah, I don't take food home any more."

However, he then confessed that he had taken home the items processed by Mr Castagna-Davies. When questioned if he had requested a 50 per cent discount, Mr Gardiner stated: "I just asked for someone to put it through."

During his interview, Mr Castagna-Davies claimed he couldn't recall the transaction but suggested he might have accidentally "pressed the wrong button", applying a 50 per cent discount instead of the usual 20 per cent. He denied knowing that Mr Gardiner intended to take the food home.

Mr Jenkins dismissed him without notice. Despite acknowledging Mr Castagna-Davies' unblemished disciplinary record over 22 years, he highlighted Wetherspoon's "vigorous" enforcement of its zero-tolerance policy.

He also suspected that Mr Castagna-Davies knew the food would be taken home, stating it wasn't "normal for staff at the pub to eat that much food during their breaks". During an appeal, Mr Castagna-Davies presented evidence from four witnesses to contend that Mr Gardiner "had ordered the food in a deceptive way".

However, Wetherspoon area manager Dannie Stephens maintained the dismissal, informing him he had "failed to lead, manage and organise your shift sufficiently to prevent the breach". At the tribunal, Judge Rachel Harfield observed "the staff discount system is one built on trust" and that repeated abuse would prove expensive to Wetherspoon.

Yet she determined it was not reasonable for Ms Stephens to conclude this constituted a case of "gross incompetence or gross negligence, as opposed to being simple negligence that falls within the misconduct category of the respondent's policy".

The judge further stated: "There is no evidence that Dannie Stephens gave any thought to that at all. She seems simply to have operated on the basis that the claimant should have managed the shift better, that if he had done so the breach would not have happened, therefore the claimant should be held responsible for the breach, and it was possible under the policy to dismiss for a single act.

"There was no weighing of the actual seriousness of the claimant's actions in their actual context. Dannie Stephens seemed to have viewed the claimant as diligent in other areas. It was one incident on one shift that he could have managed better. He was an employee with long service and a clear disciplinary record. The decision to uphold the dismissal at appeal stage was not within the reasonable range. In my judgement that rendered the whole dismissal unfair."

A compensation amount has yet to be determined. Judge Harfield urged both parties to seek an agreement before a remedy hearing occurs. The Mirror has contacted Wetherspoon to ask whether it will be reassessing its disciplinary procedures following the judge's conclusions.