The full story with some corrections.

She was buying a round of drinks and was having a friendly chat with an old man, who cheekily asked 'Do you have a boyfriend?', She replied that she was gay. Having just accepted my friend's drinks order, the barmaid then asked her to leave. When asked for a reason the barmaid replied that she doesn't have to give one (this is true) however, the only conclusion that my friend and those who witnessed the incident could come to was that it was because my friend said she was gay.

So the barmaid stole my friend's £20, threw her out of the pub violently and then went outside to threaten her with further violence while she was being consoled by friends.

The police did very little to help, although they are obliged by law to take hate crime seriously. They asked homophobic questions, such as 'did you come on to the barmaid?'. The police did say that there was enough evidence to press charges, however my friend suffers badly with anxiety and found the police very difficult to deal with. I wish I could have been there with her to help with this.

The pub has received an enormous amount of negative publicity and reviews (in fact, they have closed their facebook page). However, I doubt this will actually do them much harm. They probably won't get many new customers through their on-line presence but they have a decent base of regulars who probably don't care about the internet, or gay rights.

Why could they not just issue an apology and perhaps send the barmaid on a course about equality training?