Threatened with jail, mother who gave a restaurant one-star TripAdvisor review
Unhappy with the way she was treated by a restaurant, Sarah Gardner did as many disgruntled customers do and left a review on TripAdvisor.
The mother of three wrote that staff had been rude when she tried to make a booking for her son’s 18th birthday and described the food as ‘mediocre at best’.
She expected any reply by the high Rocks, a picturesque venue in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, to be made via the website. But Mrs Gardner, 44, was in for a nasty shock.
Days after publishing her one-star review, the part-time nurse received a letter from the restaurant’s solicitors saying it was suing her and even threatening her with jail.
In an 11-page letter marked ‘strictly not for publication’, law firm Cohen Davis said her ‘defamatory’ post had caused ‘financial harm worth tens of thousands of pounds’. Subsequent letters to Mrs Gardner, who lives five miles away in Tonbridge, accused her of a ‘campaign of defamation’.
One included a mocked-up court injunction which said: ‘If you do not comply with this order you may be held in contempt of court and may be imprisoned or fined.’ Cohen Davis, run by media lawyer Yair Cohen, said Mrs Gardner had not eaten at the high Rocks on the day her review referred to and demanded dates of her visits, receipts and details of her guests.
Mrs Gardner says she was writing about her general experience, rather than a specific date.
She also posted anonymously on Mumsnet to ask for legal advice. But Cohen Davis found her post and sent another letter saying she was ‘deliberately inducing further defamatory comments’. It demanded copies of messages she had exchanged with other internet users.
Mrs Gardner replied, saying: ‘I posted an honest review. Your client could have chosen to engage with it and leave their own comment beneath. Instead they pursued the nuclear option of threatening litigation.’
She says she felt threatened and bullied: ‘Partly I don’t want to let them get away with it and partly I hate the worry of it all. I don’t know what I’ll do if it goes to court. I cannot afford a solicitor so I’ll have to defend myself.
‘I grew up in the area and have visited the place many times over the years with friends and family. But I will not be going back after all this.’
She accused high Rocks of employing ‘threatening’ tactics with other reviewers, which it denies. Yesterday restaurant manager Giuseppe Cappellazzi said Mrs Gardner did not dine at high Rocks when she posted the feedback on March 22.
Mr Cappellazzi, 67, claimed he was the bullied party and that Mrs Gardner had fabricated the review to hurt his business.
he said: ‘We have never, ever disagreed with someone placing a low review. What we object to is a fabrication and a lie. She left three low reviews, not one. She took them down because they were false. She’s running a vendetta against us.
‘One [is] not entitled to pretend they visited when they didn’t. The idea that after 51 years of serving people that we, I, would take someone to court for placing a low review is absolutely absurd.’