Let off, restaurant boss who attacked man for daring to criticise meal
IT promised to be an intimate dinner for two on one of the most romantic nights of the year.
But one couple’s Valentine’s meal became a surreal nightmare when the hotel manager launched a ‘vicious attack’ after they complained about the food.
Michael Taylor, 57, and his wife Susan were dining at the Aurora Hotel and Italian Restaurant in Nairn when Mariangela Sulejmani ‘lost her temper’.
She attacked Mr Taylor after he complained the meal was ‘pretty poor’.
Police chiefs tried to have the hotel’s drinks licence revoked following the assault but Highland Council’s Licensing Board yesterday dismissed concerns and allowed Mrs Sulejmani to keep her licence.
The review was launched by the council after complaints were made by Mr Taylor, an HGV instructor, and the police.
Mr Taylor said he is considering taking a civil action against Mrs Sulejmani, adding: ‘It’s sickeningly disappointing to hear the decision. It raises a lot of questions.’
Describing the incident in February, Mr Taylor said: ‘The food was pretty poor. We were asked how it was and we said it wasn’t the best, but we were quite prepared to just pay up and leave.
‘The woman came back and asked about the food again and just lost her temper and started abusing my wife. She asked for our opinion and she got it.
‘I then had words with her and she launched a vicious attack on me. She started ripping at my face with her nails and I was bleeding quite heavily.’
Mr Taylor added: ‘We called the police but we had to wait nearly 30 minutes and hear more horrid abuse from her.’
In a letter to licensing chiefs, Police Scotland Chief Constable Iain Livingstone said Mrs Sulejmani ‘acted in a manner inconsistent with the licensing objectives of preventing crime and disorder, securing public safety, preventing public nuisance and improving public health’.
The letter details a guilty plea by Mrs Sulejmani at the Justice of the Peace Court in Inverness in August for assault to injury at the restaurant earlier this year.
Mr Livingstone said she was given an absolute discharge – which means that no penalty is imposed and no conviction is recorded.
He added: ‘Given Mariangela Sulejmani has launched a vicious attack on a member of the public who was a paying patron within the premises for which she is the licensee, it is clear she has breached four of the licensing objectives.’
Mr Taylor’s letter of complaint said the court case had caused ‘a lot of stress and anxiety’, adding: ‘To date, she [Mrs Sulejmani] has not shown one iota of remorse.’
Mrs Sulejmani did not wish to comment on the assault or the hearing’s outcome.