This is the apology I received which would have been more genuine if not accompanied with lies and excuses from both parties involved in this! However, it is an apology none of the less lol
Dear Ms Nicholls
I am away from the office and therefore can only pick up messages by email, but I understand that four days have elapsed since the incident and as I have spoken to those involved, I felt that it was only fair that I contacted you now before the weekend.
Before I do anything else, I feel that I should wholeheartedly apologise, because whatever happened in your case I feel we have not been as effective in communicating with you as we ought. I must take some blame for this because even yesterday when I spoke to your aunt; I initially believed that I would be speaking to you. When I realised that it wasn?t possible to speak to you, perhaps in hindsight I should have asked for your phone number so I could call you direct.
I will try to address both parts of your complaint that of the interaction that you had on the train and the response that you had from our Customer Relations people.
I also apologise if any of the following seems cold or uncaring, that is not my intention and it certainly will not be a case of me believing our employees before our customers, but these are the facts made available to me and gleaned from my investigation into the case.
Firstly, let me reiterate the plain facts, under the auspices of the Equality Act you are perfectly permitted to breastfeed on our trains and stations (not that you need any permission), and indeed anywhere else that you may wish to do so.
So why did our conductor suggest that you feed your child in the washroom on the train? On speaking to him, he states that you were being overlooked by two, what he describes as, teenagers standing holding cycles, and he felt that your close proximity to these individuals may have caused you some embarrassment; therefore, he offered you the use of the washroom as an alternative, as he thought he was offering you some privacy if you would have wanted it.
Was he right in doing so? The answer is clearly no, he should not have said anything, or if you had complained then asked these youths (who incidentally are probably unaware of these events) to vacate the area.
Why did he act in this way, I believe that it was done with the best intentions; but his actions made you feel embarrassed and discriminated against so of course they were wrong.
In cases like this, I always look into past cases, and ask the individual?s line manager ?is this typical of him/her?. In this case, it must be said that we have no history of poor customer service and I can honestly say that this employee has no past complaints lodged against him. Furthermore, his manager describes him as a good and friendly employee who normally provides very high levels of customer service.
I will also add that our employee is very upset that his actions caused you distress, and emphasises that he thought that he was helping you gain privacy.
None of this makes his actions right, but I do think that the facts are pertinent.
Now to talk about Customer Relations, the case here seems to be their apparent refusal to take you accusations over the phone and our request that you put them in writing. This is the right thing to do, because you made a very serious allegation against an employee, which needed to be investigated, the only way to do this is to get your account in writing, we then use this (with all of your personal details redacted) to interview our people and to find out what happened from their standpoint.
I have spoken to the team in Customer Relations and they deny saying that they said that it was the Conductor?s discretion whether to permit breastfeeding on their train. Of course, this would be a strange thing to say, because the law is the law and they have been trained in the requirements of the Equality Act.
They did say that the exchange became heated and I am truly sorry that this was the case, because in Customer Relations we have a clear duty to change negatives into positives and to help those who contact us. We failed in your case, so as I say I am sorry.
What are we going to learn from this case? I feel that is vital that we learn from this sad case, I said in my previous statements that cases like this are rare, and indeed I have never come across one before, but one case is one too many, so it must not happen again.
The Equality Act is a large piece of legalisation and focus is often put onto the aspects that used to be known as ?disability discrimination?, so perhaps our people need to be re-briefed about their duties towards people in your situation who need to feed their children. Therefore, I have asked our safety team to produce a brief for all those who work on our trains and stations to make it perfectly clear what is expected of them and what our customers deserve.
Finally, I hope that I can fully appreciate the situation that you found yourself in last Tuesday, and considering this, I would be quite willing to offer you a free travel for two people on our services, for a period of three months. Please believe me, that I offer this not in an attempt to placate you in anyway; but rather as a genuine gesture of goodwill, as I imagine your confidence in the rail industry in general has been knocked to a certain extent by the experience. I hope that you can use the opportunity to have an enjoyable trip somewhere on our network, and at the same time regain some confidence in our industry.
If you wish to take advantage of this goodwill gesture, please let me know and we will make the necessary arrangements to get a ticket out to you.
As you know, this case has created a great deal of interest on the internet and particularly on ?mumsnet? (which I must say I had never looked at before, but which is very impressive indeed). I was impressed with the interest that your comments created and am only sorry that our apparent inability to answer your case forced you into what must be an uncomfortable position in having use such a public media.
To close, we were wrong in how our employee interacted with you on the train, and whatever happened with your interchange with Customer Relations, you were clearly unhappy with the experience so we were wrong again.
Do I believe that we have a problem in Northern Rail concerning this subject? As I say above this is the first such complaint of this nature that I have dealt with, but also, as I say your experience was one too many, and I reiterate my apologies to you and to whoever else may have been offended by these actions.
I am aware that an email hardly does this case justice, and I would be happy to meet with you if you feel that this would be useful, please let me know some convenient dates, times and locations and I will do my best to comply.
Thank you for your patience in this matter, and I hope that this reply helps to reassure you that we take this subject and our duties to all our customers seriously.
Yours sincerely
Pete Myers
Head of Service Quality
Northern Rail Ltd
Northern House
York
YO1 6HZ
