I wish to make a complaint about a member of your staff. I encountered ‘Sandy’ yesterday evening on a DLR train from Greenwich to Lewisham.
My friends and I had had an excellent day but the sheer petulance and extraordinary lack of professionalism of your staff member really put a downer on the whole day.
We are all calm and pleasant professionals, an accountant (me), two who work at Parliament, and two University students visiting from Vienna who were mortified at the following experience during their inaugural visit to London.
When we got onto the the train, my friend said: “Let’s sit at the front so we can pretend to be driving.” He was obviously larking about but was neither remotely malicious nor was he offensive to any sensible person.
Your driver responded by turning around and telling him to stop talking else he would halt the train and call the police!
All in earshot were visibly stunned by the absurdity of his seriousness.
My friend and I (both seated behind the driver) asked why he’d taken offence and what exactly we had done wrong.
He repeated his instruction and his threat.
Again, we pressed the point, asking why the driver would possibly object to us talking.
He made good on his threat and halted the train at the next station. My friends (wishing to avoid confrontation) politely feigned an apology for any offence caused and left the train.
I informed the driver that I was extremely annoyed to have to leave the train. I said that I would but first I asked for his name so that I could complain about his behaviour.
He shouted at me, telling me that I had no right to ask what his name was. He actually held his hand over his badge so that I could not see his name!
In desperation I took a photo (attached) of him hiding his badge and face – he clearly realised his behaviour was inappropriate and was keen to avoid being identified.
He falsely accused me of “abusing” and “assaulting” him. I would contend that this may well have been slander since I did neither and he clearly accused me in order to take attention from himself and cause me embarrassment.
In what was sheer recklessness and with audacious cheek he even went and disturbed passengers further down the train, telling him that I was the reason the train was being held up. Not surprisingly, this incited one passenger to come and threaten to hit me – screaming and shouting at me.
As you might imagine the whole thing was a farce and started to get dangerously escalated.
Thankfully, when my friends came back onto the train (having heard the other passenger threatening me) the other passenger relented and as your driver got off the train to speak on his radio he revealed his badge. Since I now had his name I duly left the train and we all waited six minutes in the freezing cold for the next train.
Your driver’s actions were dangerous, unprofessional and wholly unacceptable. I was then as I am now, furious and embarrassed. Any normal person would be.
I would like you to investigate the matter urgently and suggest that this is treated with the utmost seriousness – he is clearly a deplorable liability and in my view should not be doing that job without substantial retraining. That said, I would go so far as to suggest his temperament renders him unsuitable for a role in which he is trusted to be responsible for the safety of others and suggest he might be better employed away from your front line.
I would be grateful if you would respond at your earliest convenience.