A Facebook post from bosses at the Horse and Jockey in Tideswell, Derbyshire, condemned the behaviour of Peter and Ann McGirr who had been dining with their adult children.
The erroneous post accused Peter and Ann McGirr and their adult children of tucking into lavish meals including £27 ribeye steaks and £15.25 gammon steaks, coupled with an array of drinks, then skipping out on a £150 tab.
The public blast included CCTV snaps of the family which were then splashed across media outlets, igniting a firestorm of press reports branding them deceivers.
However, it was subsequently unveiled in court that the bill had indeed been settled by the family, but a staff misstep resulted in the payment not being recorded correctly.
During proceedings at Belfast Crown Court, the McGirrs from County Tyrone mounted a fierce legal onslaught for the significant shame and damage to their good name inflicted by the false allegations.
Their counsel, Peter Girvan, said: “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.”, reports the Mirror.
“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 has admitted to the court that there was “no basis whatsoever” for the allegations and has issued an apology. In a settlement, it agreed to pay £75,000 in damages and cover the family’s legal costs.
Outside the courtroom, the family’s solicitor Darragh Carney read a statement declaring the McGirr family “vindicated” and expressed their satisfaction with the “very satisfactory settlement” which compensated for the “defamation of their character”.
In a statement from July last year, the pub expressed its regret: “We want to sincerely apologise to the people involved because we have now learnt that they did in fact pay for their meal.”
The pub also clarified: “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.”
