Accrington pub Bees Knees sorry after posting 'disgusting joke' about Jay Slater and Euros 2024

The distasteful ‘joke’ caused an uproar when it was shared by The Bees Knees in Blackburn Road, Accrington.

The post featured a picture of Jay and a football with the caption ‘both not coming home’ - a reference to the ongoing search for the apprentice bricklayer who remains missing in Tenerife, and England's faltering Euro 2024 campaign. It has since been removed from the page.

The pub has apologised and made a £1,000 donation to the family’s GoFundMe appeal. The donation is the largest so far and takes the amount raised to more than £47,500.

The Bees Knees said the ‘joke’ was the work of a social media management company, Affordable Social, which it hired to run its Facebook page.

The pub said it was “utterly gobsmacked that this has happened” and says it has terminated its contract with the firm with ‘immediate effect’. It added that pub staff have since been targeted with threatening messages on their own social media.

Affordable Social said it was ‘deeply distressed’ by the post and the staff member responsible has since been fired. It issued a statement on Facebook but the page now appears to have been deactivated.

Rachel Hargreaves, mum of Jay's best friend Brad, was among those hitting out at the pub, saying it was an example of "how cruel some people really are".

She slammed the joke as ‘sickening’, saying: “How can anyone even share stuff like that, very disgusting and very disrespectful."

In a statement on Monday, a spokesperson for AJP Pubs, which manages The Bees Knees Accrington, said: “This morning a conversation between Bees Knees Directors and Affordable Social has taken place in which we have decided to terminate our contract with immediate effect, after not receiving an adequate explanation into how this happened.

“Affordable Social were challenged three months ago to improve our social media pages via light hearted humour, good content and sports talk.

“The post that made it onto the page was neither one of the above and was highly insensitive and deeply offensive.

“As a business we are utterly gobsmacked that this has happened and how somebody could find good humour in a missing boy.

“I can’t stress enough nobody within the pub company has posted this status, some of which are receiving threatening messages which is completely unacceptable.

“As a company we are East Lancashire based with our head office in Blackburn, we fully understand the impact this news about Jay has had on the area.

“We all have our fingers crossed of his safe return to the UK. We however fully appreciate the damage has been done and nothing can change this however we will make a donation to the family fund of £1,000 to assist the search for Jay.

“OUR CHALLENGE IS TO BE BETTER, we will be looking at recruiting a social media company who share our beliefs in how we operate as a company so this never happens again.”

Statement from Affordable Social

“This morning, an employee posted something that does not reflect our brand standards or our client Bees Knees Accrington, and has caused offense to others and upset to those involved.

“We are deeply distressed by the post, which was removed minutes after being posted.

“The employee responsible for this post no longer works for Affordable Social. We sincerely apologise to everyone affected by this incident.

“We are committed to upholding our values and ensuring that such an incident does not occur again. Thank you for your understanding and support as we work to make things right.”