CCTV footage has captured the moment a “bungling” couple reportedly left a top seafood restaurant without paying. The owners of Mackerel Sky Seafood Bar in Cornwall say the pair on camera ate a meal and drank wine before doing a runner.
Jamie McLean, who runs the restaurant with wife Nina, called it the “worst crime ever”. He said the couple had been looking “really shifty” and added: “They ordered a bottle of wine and some food and were looking and acting quite shifty and then began discussing various things before complaining the fish was a bit small as a diversionary tactic…Then they glugged their bottle of wine and the husband ran off with his hood up sort of incognito.”
The woman then followed the man quickly out the door, the restaurant says. But Jamie said they made a mistake in leaving their phone number after calling previously to see how busy the restaurant was. “They were just taking the absolute p**s basically,” he told Cornwall Live.
Jamie said the couple still have not been back to pay their £62 bill. “It wouldn’t be August without the chaos,” Jamie added. “It was a complete bungle and when they finally picked up the phone I said, ‘either come back and pay your bill or get run out of Cornwall”.”
Despite the couple blaming the quality of the food, Jamie is adamant they hadn’t wanted to pay from the get-go due to their behaviour and discussions captured on the CCTV. One positive to come out of it all though, he says, is the united front locals and fans of the restaurant put on. He said people had really “rallied together” calling it “quite sweet”.
The incident has been reported to Devon and Cornwall Police. It is the most recent in a string of similar incidents in Cornwall after another “dine and dash” group allegedly fled after a £319 meal at Treganna Castle’s restaurant and a pub in Hayle – but those incidents are not believed to be connected to the Mackerel Sky Seafood Bar case.
Dine and dash cases were in the news on this side of the border earlier in 2024 when a married couple left a series of expensive restaurants without paying. Bernard and Ann McDonagh, from Sandfields in Port Talbot, targeted five restaurants across Swansea, Neath, Port Talbot, and Porthcawl. In total they ate food worth more than £1,000 from the establishments but were identified after CCTV images were posted online. The couple, of Western Avenue, each pleaded guilty to five counts of obtaining services dishonestly at Swansea Magistrates Court. Ann McDonagh was sentenced to 12 months in prison and Bernard McDonagh to eight months in prison.