The food chain denied staff watched and laughed (Picture: SWNS)

McDonald’s staff ‘fat-shamed’ a 16-year-old girl when she ordered six cheeseburgers, it has been claimed.

Sabrina Hopkinson decided to let her four kids have fast food as a treat over the Christmas holidays and sent her daughter Corrina to pick up the meal for everyone with her brother Jack, aged 10.

But she claims that when Corrina put in the order at the restaurant in Shoreham, Sussex, staff behind the counter started laughing at her.

According to the teenager, when she asked for the meals a girl shouted to the kitchen: ‘Six cheeseburgers. I’m not joking this time. This fat woman wants six burgers’.




Corrina, who is overweight, said she was left in tears by the insult and tried to defend herself, saying ‘They’re not just for me. They’re for my brother and sisters’.

Sabrina Hopkinson with Jack, Jessica, Corrina and Ashley (Picture: SWNS)

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However, McDonald’s ‘categorically denied’ any such incident took place.

In the family’s account, staff who were just standing around started laughing at Corrina.

37-year-old Sabrina, herself a former McDonald’s worker, said she didn’t think six burgers and four fries for four people was over the top.

‘Normally we have home-cooked meals, but once in a while I let them have a treat,’ she said.

The McDonalds in Shoreham where it allegedly happened (Picture: SWNS)

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Full-time mum Sabrina said as soon as she heard what happened she marched into McDonald’s herself and confronted the manager.

‘The manager kept apologising but she wouldn’t let me speak to the girl who had said it, even though I knew she was hiding around the back,’ she said.

Things got even worse when her partner went into the restaurant later that same day and the manager called the police over alleged threats.

Sabrina said: ‘It was nothing. My partner ended up shaking hands with the policeman.’

‘In this day and age, you wouldn’t expect it. I used to work in McDonald’s when I was young and I would never have dreamed of speaking to a customer like that. I would’ve been sacked straight away.’

Corrina claims she was insulted (Picture: SWNS)

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But McDonald’s denied the ‘fat-shaming’ ever happened.

A spokesman said: ‘This allegation is entirely false. We took this claim very seriously and our investigation shows that this did not take place.

‘We have reviewed the restaurant CCTV footage and engaged the local police following the threats made against our employees connected to the incident.’

A spokesman for Sussex Police confirmed they had been called to the restaurant but said that it was not a police matter and simply a civil dispute which did not require the police. Police had no record of verbal abuse, he added.