18/07/2024
I would like to inform all our wonderful students past and present that today we have been subjected to unfortunately some Facebook slander by a disgruntled customer.
We would like to express our HUGE thanks to all our wonderful students that have taken the time today to ring and screen shot and share with us this disgusting slur regarding one of our very valued instructors.
Below is our response - the matter is now with our legal team whom I’m sure will do us proud.
⭐️⭐️⭐️ Our response ⭐️⭐️⭐️
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In response to the above comments from Courtney, we feel it important to air a mutual view on the issues raised.
Courtney did attend a CBT training day on June 11th at our Dewsbury site- Graham was the instructor this day.
This CBT was booked not directly with us but via Ride-To. To explain, Ride-To are a 3rd party booking system- they have the ability to take and manage bookings for CBT’s on behalf of many schools, us being one of them.
This means they get paid, then we get paid, at a reduced rate as they take a small percentage for providing their services.
All this aside, Courtney didn’t enjoy the day it appears for whatever reason, she was unsuccessful in her attempt of the CBT and just to clarify the CBT isn’t a 2 part process, it’s a training day that during the course of said day you are required to reach and maintain certain levels of safety and express ability to be able to control the bike.
Just to clarify, Graham has been an instructor for over 10 years, he has an impeccable record with the DVSA and has recently passed a standards check by the DVSA and scored the maximum achievable score of a 51.
Not many score this.
That aside, we appreciate he may not be everyone’s cup of tea so to speak- we cannot be all things to all people all the time, can any of us? However we feel his record speaks for itself.
Following the CBT we had an email from Ride-To whom Courtney booked her CBT with explaining that they had received an “anonymous” complaint- claiming that the instructor on the day was rude, and smelt of alcohol.
When asked for the complainants name so we could contact her to address, discuss and hopefully resolve the situation they reiterated she wished to remain anonymous and that she wished for her comments to be noted but for no further action to be taken.
We then received a letter from the DVSA asking to look into the complaint- again anonymous.
Difficult for us to intervene or help if we don’t know who the complaint is from!
After much investigation on our part we identified Courtney to be the complainant, we contacted her directly and spoke to her to try and establish facts and hear her side of the story.
She was very nice on the phone and we explained why the complaint had not been dealt with directly by us, as we were not aware of who she was or what had happened.
We only had the version of complaint she gave to Ride-To & the DVSA.
We apologised and promised to look into the matter immediately.
Had Courtney made the complaint direct to ourselves we would have been aware obviously and been given the opportunity to deal with it.
Subsequently as a result of our findings we needed to start the process of investigation and we invited Graham in for a formal meeting to discuss the matter. As a result of the meeting Graham denies/denied all the accusations against him however as a result of the severity of the claims made towards Graham all being unsubstantiated but still very serious we felt we had no option but to suspend Graham with immediate effect until
further notice pending further investigation.
Our investigation is obviously still ongoing as the issue has only just been brought to our attention on July the 3rd via the DVSA & Ride-To, Courtney explained to us that she had applied for a refund via her bank and we advised her to continue with that line of enquiry and contact us if she got into any difficulties whilst doing this.
However as the investigation has progressed and the timeline of events established due to the fact that Courtney failed to complain to us direct to give us the opportunity to amend the situation, we were unwilling to refund her, as we felt she had already chosen her path of complaint and taken action to raise her issues with every avenue but ourselves, we explained that a refund would be issued after we had completed our investigation if her claims were found to be true, the investigation is still ongoing.
This has led to Courtney not us! sending threating messages (pic attached) to deface/slander our company using social media and Google whilst informing the local media papers.
Due to the severity of the social media claims and the lengths that Courtney has gone to to gain her refund by splurging Grahams name and our company all over many sites, we have asked Ride-To issue Courtney with a refund on our behalf as we have now passed all relevant details of the matter along with all the details of Courtney and her partner Chris on to our legal team who will be dealing with this deformation of character suit from this point onwards.
Whilst everyone on here is entitled to their opinion I would just like to take this time to ask everyone to put themselves in Grahams shoes- imagine doing a job for over 10 years to the best of your ability achieving maximum standards checks with the governing body that is the DVSA and then being subject to such disgusting social media slander by an “anonymous” complainant.
Not being given the opportunity or space to allow a full and thorough investigation to take place before being trolled to death by people who have most likely never met or spoken to him.
We are not protesting anyone’s innocence, or defending or denying the complaint just simply explaining that it is still under investigation and how can you hang draw and quarter a man, drag his name through the mud based on 1 persons allegations?
Please bear in mind all these claims are un-substantiated at this time.
As a school may you like or not like us, we aim to deliver the best and safest motorcycle training possible. We invest endless time and money into staff training and equipment to ensure our students receive the very best experience we can possibly give.
Motorcycle training is not easy, people’s expectations are often higher than reality would dictate but it is our job to get you to your given goal as safely as possible- CBT days are quite often not completed in 1 day as individual skill and experience differ massively which dictates some students can potentially be disgruntled at the not so successful outcome.
However this all aside we would rather take a complaint over a dead body any day.
kindest thoughts Team S&K 🏍️
