Chef gives £1k from diners’ bill to waitress they harassed

THE owner of a restaurant yesterday gave a waitress the £1,000 spent by a party of six ‘obnoxious’ diners who harassed and belittled her.

Lee Skeet, who started his career under Gordon Ramsay at Claridge’s, has won rave reviews for his Cardiff restaurant Cora.

But he was furious to learn how the group had treated Lily Griffith.

At first he tweeted that he would give the party their money back – after deducting a £100 tip for Miss Griffith – if they promised never to return.

Yesterday he changed his mind and put the entire amount into her bank account. It had been Cora’s biggest bill for one table since it opened in January.

But Mr Skeet said: ‘Lily’s welfare is more important to me than money.’

In an email to the person who booked the table, which had not been answered yesterday, Mr Skeet said Miss Griffith had been ‘talked down to, disrespected and touched unwantedly by members of your group’.

He added: ‘I just think we should start calling out rich people who think they can treat people like crap.’

Miss Griffith only discovered his ‘lovely gesture’ when she happened to check her bank balance.

‘He didn’t tell me he was going to do it’, she said. ‘He’s a great guy.’

She sasid the five men and one woman had been ‘rude from the get-go’.

‘As they went to leave, one of the men grabbed me by the arm and just stared at me. I had to shake myself free of him,’ the waitress said.