Sign up to the Hull Live newsletter for daily updates and breaking news Sign up here! Thank you for subscribing See our privacy notice Invalid Email

It has been compared to Fawlty Towers and now a Beverley B&B has a sign on the door saying Women Are Not Welcome.

Owner John Dixon Hart was fined in July after falsely advertising his B&B as a four star location – despite bloodstains on the walls, mouse droppings in the beds and mud in the fridge.

Now, Mr Hart has put up a 'Women Are Not Welcome' sign on the front door of Minster Garth Guest House, near Beverley Minster.

He insists there is nothing wrong with the sign at his Keldgate B&B.

Mr Hart, 53, says: “I can do what I like. I am sure if I said 'no women allowed' that would be illegal but you can say 'women are not welcome'."

He has no idea what his guests think to the sign. He says: “I don’t really like women. I just don’t speak to them or look at them.

“I believe there’s one staying at the moment. I have no idea what she thinks (to the sign), I have not spoken to her about it.”

Mr Hart, a married father of two, says he is “old fashioned” in his thinking and accepts he is “slightly biased against women”.

He says: “Theresa May, the Prime Minister, should be at home behind the kitchen sink, she has not got a clue.”

He went on: “I hate that Pankhurst woman and all those suffragettes, I just hate the fact that women vote. I suppose they can drive a little, they are not very good drivers.

“They are air heads, they are thinking about a million things at once.”

Mr Hart has previously put up a “Bates Motel” sign at his guest house, in a reference to an American psychological horror drama TV series.

He says: “The sign gets changed fairly regularly. I’ve had Bates Motel on it before.”

Mr Hart has no problem about being compared to Basil Fawlty, the eccentric hotelier played by John Cleese in the classic TV sitcom Fawlty Towers.

He says: “I try my best to make it an entertaining experience. Fawlty Towers? That’s no problem for me. I love John Cleese, I think he’s brilliant.

“I run a lovely place. I try my hardest but I drink a lot in the evenings. I never drink during the day.”

He admits he may have put up the Women Are Not Welcome sign after a few drinks but insists he remains “proud” of the sign.

He says: “Even now I am quite proud of it, it’s sticking up two fingers to everyone.

“Churchill did that a lot.”

A woman passer-by who lives nearby was not surprised to see the sign on the door.

She says: “You almost expect it, this sort of thing goes on there. I can’t imagine what it’s like staying there."

A man passer-by was shocked, saying: "I think it's appalling. It's also very odd."