“On the day of 11th July 2018, my wife and I, along with our three kids, planned our visit to All England Lawn Tennis Club Championships for the first time. We arrived at the venue midday to purchase our entry tickets. We walked around the Club for a few minutes and then decided to visit the Centre Court to take some photographs. After getting permission from the security personnel at the entry gate, we went up the stairs. Once inside the Centre Court, I approached a different security person to seek permission to take photos. We were told that we had 20 mins to stay before the next match would start and at that point we would have to leave Centre Court.
We all felt extremely excited and started to take photos, but before we could take few photos we were accosted by Mr. Richard Oliphant, who questioned us if we had seats, to which I replied no, we were only taking some photos. At that point Richard told us that we can't stay and should leave the Centre Court at once. He further questioned me whether we were together and that's when he started to abuse each one of us, pointed at each of us in turn and yelled several times to GET OUT! We all felt humiliated and insulted by his outrageous behaviour and to our surprise, as we started to leave, he followed us and continued his verbal abuse as we descended down the steps. He said things like this is a private club and we didn?t belong there, also if he saw us again he?ll call the police. As we walked away in shock and horror, Richard yelled at the security guard standing at the entry and questioned him why he had allowed us inside. I tried to correct his allegation made towards the security guard who was of African ethnicity and pointed out that we had not come through his gate and to stop abusing him through baseless accusation.
Richard went on a racist tirade demeaning our whole family, he told us that we didn't belong there and he would get us removed from the club. He gestured and used the words SCRAM and BUZZ OFF. My wife questioned him "why is he being racist and as though we were not good enough to be there" His abuse went on for few minutes and once again, he threatened us with police. My children, all minors, were frightened and horrified by his aggressive and threatening behaviour. We requested to see his supervisor with whom we could discuss our grievance. He refused our request and instead, called an Army personnel standing nearby. My wife pointed out that Wimbledon was a prestigious club and that Richard?s conduct was unbecoming a person representing such a prestigious institution. Richard kept interrupting so the Army personnel asked him to at least listen to her and questioned his behaviour. Richard still did not feel the need to apologise and insisted that we should never have been there. After hearing both sides, the Army personnel determined that we could file a complaint but nothing will be done about it. It's shocking to hear that, but he turned out to be right. He told Richard to apologise to us, if he had abused his position and told us to get out. Richard denied any occurrence of abuse, including denying that he had said GET OUT, which was a blatant lie because he had said it to us individually, as recorded above. The children challenged him there and then, and told the Army official that he was lying.
Before leaving, we went to SW Information Desk to log our complaint at 19:23. We saw Carol Wager who listened to our grievances. As we explained the incident, Carol took detailed notes and empathised with us and confirmed that visitors were allowed to see the Centre Court in between matches. Carol was in disbelief, she couldn't understand why we were treated in such a disgraceful manner. She assured us that this matter will be dealt with and mentioned that she would complete a complaint form to take this forward. Carol provided us with her name as a reference to our complaint.
We were shaken by this unfortunate event and were not able to enjoy the rest of our day in that hostile environment, which haunts us until today. Adding insult to our injury, no action has been taken by All England Lawn Tennis Club Championships.
It seems we spent £100 to be humiliated by a bigoted individual who abused his official position in a customer service role at what is known to be one of the most prestigious tennis clubs.”
