Tequila owner shared rape joke video on Facebook

Tequila say students were responsible for sick rape jokes, but a link to the video has been on its owner’s Facebook page for three days.

exclusive rape row sam welply tequila

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• Tequila blames students for rape tape, saying they posted it without management knowing.
But 39-year-old owner Sam Welply shared the clip on  his own Facebook timeline.
A link to the video was still on Welply’s Facebook timeline today, three days and two grovelling apologies later.

When Tequila was attacked for posting a video filled with rape jokes this week, the company heaped the blame on its student employees, saying bosses had no knowledge of the video and branding it “inexcusable” and “deplorable”.

But The Tab can exclusively reveal the company’s 39-year-old owner Sam Welply had in fact shared the “freshers violation” video on Facebook himself.

Tequila’s owner Sam Welply shared the video on Facebook himself

Welply, who has run Tequila for the last 20 years, shared a link to the video on his own Facebook profile the day it was posted. The video was taken down after four hours but the link remained.

The link, which Tequila says Welply shared without watching, was still on his timeline today, three days and two grovelling apologies after the firm was attacked for making jokes about raping and fisting freshers.

And a friend shared Welply’s post, laughing at the video:

Denial

In a phone call with our reporter, Turnkey, the Leeds-based PR firm hired to protect Tequila’s reputation said: “Students are responsible for Facebook content and on this occasion the video was posted without senior management’s knowledge.

“The company would never ever condone this form of content. They weren’t aware that that content was posted and when they saw it, it was removed.”

When we told the PR firm about the post on Sam Welply’s Facebook timeline, they admitted they weren’t aware he had shared the video.

They later said Welply had shared the video without watching it, telling us: “As the video content is managed and run by the students, in which Sam Welply has a lot of trust, he automatically (as always) shared the video prior to watching. Remember that video content is created and uploaded on behalf of the club night weekly and as such in latter years has never before raised concerns.”

“Once Sam realised the nature of the content he immediately removed the video from YouTube and posted an apology on the official Tequila UK Facebook page.”

Listen to audio from the video obtained by the Leeds Student:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7judAtPBJA0

Mispelled apology

In an earlier apology in which the company failed to correctly spell its own name, Tequila said: “As is standard at all of our club nights, we invite an external videographer and student presenter to capture the spirit of Tequilla. [sic]

“Clubbers are invited to speak on camera and their comments and behaviours may or may not get edited into a snippet of the night. Until now, we have entrusted editing rights to the videographer after the event.

“However, we profusely apologise for the content of our latest video which we recognise was completely unacceptable. The interviewer was wrong to pose the questions he did, the responses were in turn deplorable and the choice to include such discourse was equally inexcusable.

“As soon as we were aware of the posting, we removed the video and apologised.”

The video was part of the annual “freshers violation” night

Angry students refused to swallow the apology. Olivia Hickey wrote: “Who puts out a promotional video for an event & doesn’t watch it first???” and Rich Wright wrote: “I love how companies make such a U turn and apologise when they realise customers are upset but the fact they did in the 1st place really shows what they’re like.”

Some fans defended the company, however, posting messages of support such as: “I heart Tequila” and “don’t ever change”.

Tequila has already been dropped by RAG as its partner for the Safer Sex Circus, and a petition calling on Mezz Club to drop Tequila on Thursday nights has gained 684 signatures.

Do you want Tequila to survive? Are you going tonight? Comment below or email [email protected] if you’d like to write about it.