Gay travel firm says it’s victim of hate campaign

Gay travel agency Mantrav International claims it has become the victim of a smear campaign by a former director who was sacked from the company.

Andrew Jones was fired 18 months ago, but an industrial tribunal later ordered Mantrav founder Malcolm Hardy to pay him more than £66,000 for unfair dismissal.

The tribunal found that Hardy's behaviour throughout the proceedings was "vexatious and unreasonable", that correspondence he had sent to Jones' representative  was "unprofessional, aggressive and threatening" and that he had provided false evidence.
 
Mantrav claims Jones has since set up a website, which it says falsely claims the travel agency is being investigated by the National Fraud Authority.

 The site includes what Mantrav says is a false recording of the president of a Gay & Lesbian Association in Gran Canaria, Derek Payne, accusing Mantrav of mis-selling holidays to a property close to the island's gay centre.

The company claimed it has reported the website to Sussex Police, which it says is investigating the matter.

Jones has denied any involvement with the website, which was set up by someone who gave false contact details.

"I don't know who set up the site, but Mantrav are blaming me because of what happened at the tribunal," said Jones. He said  he has reported his former employer to the National Fraud Authority for allegedly taking bookings for a non-existent property in Gran Canaria.
 
The website host 1and1 Internet has ordered the owner of the site to remove the defamatory content by noon today or it says it will take the site down.
 
A Mantrav director, who gave his name as David Green, claimed Jones had been waging a hate campaign against the company since he left. Green said Jones was also behind recent defamatory comments made about the company on Facebook and Twitter.
 
"He has been doing everything in his power to damage our reputation," said Green.
 
Green admitted Mantrav clients had arrived at accommodation in Gran Canaria in November to find that their bookings were not valid or that the rooms were overbooked. He blamed a lack of communication between the owners of a deluxe resort in Playa del Ingles and Mantrav's agent in the Canaries.
 
Green admitted that Mantrav had been selling the deluxe property close to Playa del Ingles' gay centre as the gay-friendly Club Mancha whereas the property it described was actually the San Valentin, popular with couples and families.

He said the San Valentin was in the process of changing its name to Club Mancha Sanctum but it was not clear whether it was to become a men-only resort.
 
Green said it was true that some Mantrav customers who arrived at the resort had been told their bookings were not valid, either because the resort did not accept bookings made under the name Club Manch or because it was overbooked during November, but he insisted the company was not being investigated by the National Fraud Authority.
 
The Metropolitan Police and the National Fraud Authority confirmed that some details published on a website claiming the company was under investigation in the UK and the Canaries were false.

Mr Payne could not be contacted this week.
 
By Linsey McNeill

* This article was updated on 19/12/2011