I don't think it was planned if they'd have left when asked (and they were asked a number of times) then there wouldn't have been a problem

I don’t blame them for filming. It’s a pretty effective way of de-escalating a situation, as most people realise that if they behave inappropriately it will be recorded. Of course, CCTV doesn’t usually have audio, so will look very similar to a day-to-day conversation.

He's a 'large man' and nobody in that pub wasn't going to stop him behaving the way he did, and he knew it.
Pity there wasn't a few doormen around to 'chuck him out'. Hull awarded Kelly's 'foul mouthed' rant with a new contract, so maybe ugly Joel will be appointed Wigan's captain for the 2019 season !

Yes, of course. Those conniving barmaids are going to work every day just waiting to snare unsuspecting rugby players.

Why would you need to pick up what’s being said when it’s just drunken insults, unless your planning on making them look as bad as possible and then using it against them. At no point does either of them look physically threatening and it didn’t shut Joel up and wound him up even more. If you’re that scared you don’t stand there filming them and engage in conversation. They knew exactly what they were doing and I don’t feel sorry for them at all.

Of course they should have but the bar staff deliberately try and wind Joel up to get a reaction out of him knowing that he was ed.

Does the woman claim to be scared? What would you want them to do instead of engage in conversation? Physically throw out two rugby players bigger than them? Walk away from the bar they work at? And yes picking up what's said is important, watch that video on mute and they could be talking about anything.

I think Joel going behind the bar is physically intimidating. The bar staff repeatedly ask them to leave, which suggests they may be scared and feel intimidated. However, you can’t simply decide how someone feels based on their actions. Just because they don’t look terrified (in your view), it doesn’t mean they weren’t.

Do they? My perception is that they ask him to leave on many occasions.

To make matters worse, it was 5 weeks ago. The owner of the bar in question contacted the club who said they would dealt with it internally.

Seems like the club have done nothing...

The one talking to Sam at the start says she feels uncomfortable and there’s supposedly a 17 year old in tears. Instead of engaging in conversation they should have just asked them to leave and then rang the police which would have been the best way to get them to leave. Instead, one gets her phone out and starts filming them which is only going to wind them up and then calls Joel a ‘weirdo’, implies their careers will be ruined and whispers sams name to try and get a reaction off him. And I ask why they need to get the audio because calling someone a sad c**t and the rectum of Wigan is not a criminal offence so the only reason for filming it is to put it online. They’re all either stupid or out of order.

Are you Joel Tomkins agent the way your justifying what he did if he'd had left when asked then the filming becomes irrelevant but he didn't he just kept saying he's not so it's all his OWN FAULT

The one talking to Sam isn't the one filming, uncomfortable isn't scared and just because you don't think you'd get your phone out of scared doesn't mean it's not the way someone else would react.

They did ask them to leave many times and go to phone the police, Joel went behind the bar when they were going to do this.

What they said may not be a criminal offence but you only know what they said after the fact. The girl doesn't know before she starts filming exactly what Joel's going to say....he could've easily verbally threatened to hurt her for example.

Actually, it could be. Behaviour that causes harassment, alarm or distress is a criminal offence under the Public Order Act.

It’s all well and good ‘going to ring the police’ but why didn’t they actually ring them? Also, we don’t know what happened before the filming. I’m not doubting that they’re both idiots at the very best but I think it’s been made to look worse than it actually is.

Seen a comment from the bar maid which says she was paid to delete the video. The plot thickens.

Because Joel tries to walk behind the bar so they go to stop him.

She says on Facebook that she was paid a grand to delete the video and she didn’t put it on. Means that she has sent it to someone. Not sure how anyone can argue that she wasn’t looking to provoke them.

Why not ring them once he goes back? And why would you tell him to ‘say it’ repeatedly, when he says ‘do you know what you look like’ but doesn’t seem to have a clue what he’s going to say himself, if your not looking to provoke them?

To me, this is the issue in terms of severity.
At 00:11 Joel moves around the front of the bar. The woman behind the bar tells him not to come round, and holds out her hand in a defensive manner. He continues to enter the bar area and at 00:12 clearly and deliberately walks into the woman saying “I will” and grabs her left arm with his right hand.
What happens afterwards is bad but to me, this physical contact is completely unacceptable.

The only thing she was trying to do was get them to leave. I think you are in a minority of one here.

Having watched the video i don't think Sam does much wrong apart from being plastered (which there's nothing wrong with him doing)

Joels the one to blame IMO. His verbal tirade at her is just horrendus.

Yeah now I've watch it, I agree - Sam's done nothing wrong (that is provable). He may well have said horrible stuff before the phone came out but he's not been recorded saying anything.

Sam's behaviour changes as soon as he realises he's being filmed. He's clearly more intelligent than his brother (not a high bar, granted) and keeps his mouth shut knowing that everything is being recorded.

If Wigan have known about this for as long as has been suggested, then their media/PR team is probably the ones best described as the rectum of Wigan.

So many ways that's not acceptable. I'm not small, and an ex-player myself, but if a drunk Joel Tomkins came round the bar towards me when I'd told him not to, I'd be pretty worried. Imagine how that woman must have felt.


To me, that's a big suspension and a big fine. But then that's what I thought should have happened to Albert Kelly.


Seems bonkers to me that we hand out huge suspensions to players who take recreational drugs in private with no impact on anyone else. But when players get off their face publicly on another recreational drug, alcohol, and frighten and/or abuse members of the public, it's all dismissed without consequence.