• Joss Beechim-Horton said he has received online abuse since the end of last year
• He fears his pub in Callington, Cornwall, could be seriously damaged financially

A pub chef has blasted a vegan activist for ‘trying to ruin’ his business’ reputation by posting fake one-star reviews on Tripadvisor despite having never visited the restaurant. 

Joss Beechim-Horton, who runs the Manor House Inn in Callington, Cornwall, and prides himself on how his food is all sourced locally and everything is made in house despite ‘barely scraping through the pandemic’.

However, since the end of last year he has been receiving online abuse from a vegan activist for selling meat on their premises.

Mr Beechim-Horton said it first started when someone posing as a ‘customer’ left angry emojis in comment sections on the pub’s social media page.

After this, the same person left one-star reviews on Tripadvisor, claiming that the owner was ‘rude and unhelpful in front of my family’.

‘I feel very worried about how much damage he could do if he continues to post fake reviews. Our staff are on edge,’ he told the Telegraph. 

‘We have no record of him ever visiting and have checked back over six months of booking and walk-ins.

‘We work very hard and barely scraped through the pandemic. Now with spiralling costs, I fear that he has the ability to affect our trade.’

The activist left two Tripadvisor reviews within two days of each other in March.

The first said: ‘The owner Joss Beechim-Horton was rude and unhelpful in-front of my family. We all have bad days but this was unexpected. Can NOT recommend this place on any level.’

The second one-star review said: ‘Very poor, and the service was not great. I can’t recommend this establishment sadly, it only has the one star from me… it was not the best experience.’

Mr Beechim-Horton also explained how angry comments on his Facebook page from the activist soon developed into ‘strange ramblings’ about how chicken was linked to climate change.

He said on his Facebook: ‘For a fair few months we have been getting loads of abuse online from a vegan activist for selling meat in our premises.

‘I confronted [him] about these weird comments and have been berated by him about global warming and the meat industry. 

‘[He] has now started posting fake reviews about our business… baring in mind he has never been here and only found our business via us boosting posts and advertising our business on social media.

‘I have had a few reviews deleted by Tripadvisor and google reviews but he still continues to harass us.

‘After researching him I have found he is linked to several protests about fishing and game hunting. 

‘[He] clearly has an issue with me on a personal level as made clear by one of his reviews naming me specifically and will not speak to me about it.’

He finished the post by saying: ‘What a world we live in where someone feels the need to do this to not just me but the entire team here at The Manor House Inn!’

The Online Safety Bill, which is currently before Parliament, is set to make it an offence to post a false message on a platform. 

It will also place duties on tech firms to protect users from harmful or illegal content and it is expected to come into force some time in 2024. 

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak faced a major backbench rebellion over the bill, however, after 50 MPs put their names to an amendment that would make tech chiefs criminally liable for failing to block minors from seeing damaging content.

Tripadvisor also revealed in the company’s 2021 Review Transparency Report that one million reviews it received were fake for the previous year.

It stated that 67.1 per cent of all fake review submissions were prevented from appearing on the platform.

In total, the online site said it penalised 34,605 properties for fraudulent activity and banned 20,299 members for failing to abide by its community standards in 2020.