A man who posted a series of false reviews on Tripadvisor has been forced to pay more than £7,000 after the owner of the restaurant took him to court.
Martin Stewart Pott claimed his family became sick after eating at Bispham Kitchen in Blackpool and posted 10 reviews on the website under a pseudonym between October and November in 2018.
Judge Sephton QC at Manchester County Court ruled in July that Potts was guilty of malicious falsehood, and ordered him to pay £7,455 in compensation to restaurant owner Steve Hoddy.
The court heard how Mr Potts of Belmont, near Bolton, embarked on a campaign of lies after the owner challenged one of his reviews on the online site.
He had visited Bispham Kitchen on Red Bank Road and afterwards wrote "The owner glares at you weirdly".
But owner and Cambridge graduate Steve Hoddy, escalated the reviews and took Potts to court.
In a hearing in July, Judge Sephton ruled that Potts was guilty of malicious falsehood and he was ordered to pay the compensation to Mr Hoddy.
Potts challenged the ruling but in a hearing in October, Judge Bird upheld the initial decision.
The reviews were posted between October 23 and November 16, 2018, with one claiming that the food had made him sick along with his wife and children.
However, Mr Hoddy was able to show this was lie, as the Belmont man had no wife or children.
Mr Hoddy, who is the managing director of six restaurants and a takeaway, said the case showed up the serious problems that hospitality businesses have with online reviews which could easily be malicious, false or fake. He added that such reviews can seriously damage a business.
He said: "About three years ago this man decided he was going to troll Bispham Kitchen. He used eight different user names and was saying things like 'the fish wasn't haddock it was catfish', and that it made himself, his wife and children ill; 'the chips were fried in burnt oil'.
“I don't normally reply to reviews but I did to this one and the reply was partially humourous.
"I said I can assure you the owner of Bispham Kitchen is the most charming delightful person you could possibly hope to meet and he would not dream of glaring weirdly at his customers'. But that seemed to provoke him into the spate of reviews over the next couple of weeks.
"The problem was it was in the October half term week 2018 which is our busiest time, serving probably a thousand customers a day.
"It was a whole catalogue of bogus reviews. He later put up reviews of some of my other businesses too. But he'd made the same spelling mistakes throughout the different reviews, so it was obvious it was the same person.
"With four of the user names, he had done about a hundred reviews of other places, so I was able to piece together a picture of who he was. He knew exactly what he was doing. I traced him and I went and confronted him.
"I gave him a letter warning him that unless he apologised for the reviews, I would sue him for malicious falsehood. Unbeknown to him, I did law at university and have two law degrees, although I don't practice as a barrister.
"This is an important issue. Online trolling is rife and one of the big problems nowadays. It's becoming a pandemic of its own. It wrecks businesses. I have owned Bispham Kitchen for 44 years now and my business is robust enough to withstand this sort of nonsense.
"But particularly for hotels it is a real problem, because people really do take note of hotel reviews because they are spending larger sums of money. It is the scourge of modern society."
Mr Hoddy contacted Tripadvisor to point out the reviews could not be correct and the website later took down the comments.
"I had to prove that the reviews complained of were both false and malicious. I did this relatively easily. On the review which said he made him, his wife and his children ill, I found out he did not have a wife or children. With the catfish claim, I was able to produce all my fish bills to show the fish we serve was haddock.
"I also did a credit search on his address and name. It came up with five different aliases, all with the same date of birth and one of which was one of the user names which he denied using. So I could prove my case."
A UK spokesman for Tripadvisor, which is based in Needham, Massachusetts, said: "Tripadvisor takes the issue of fraud extremely seriously and we use the best in technology and human moderation practices to fight it.
"Our advice to business owners and consumers alike is simple: if you see a review that arouses suspicion or breaches any of our guidelines, please report it to us. Our team will then investigate, and act accordingly."
