A Costa worker was caught on CCTV appearing to push a child off a bike and onto a road outside a store.
The incident took at 2.12pm on Thursday, June 2, at the coffee chains's drive-thru store off Ffordd Y Mileniwm in Barry.
According to Wales Online, South Wales Police have decided against bringing charges, however the retailer's franchise partner is carrying out their own investigation.
A whistleblower, who provided security footage of the incident, said a group of boys aged about 12-years-old were joking among themselves outside the branch. They claim one of the boys then used offensive language about a store worker who reportedly shoved him over in response.
"In the video you can see the employee reach over the front garden fencing, grab the child’s bike and push the child off it, throwing the child off his bike into the road [through the car park]," they added. "Thankfully at the time there were no cars around as they drive incredibly fast around the corner coming out of the drive-thru and it’s incredibly dangerous to be in the road. At the end of the video you see one of the staff members rushing to help the young boy out the road and telling [the first staff member] to leave. The young boy was crying, shaking, and said that he’d hurt himself in the fall."
The source at the business said the drive-thru team contacted the boy's family who then came to the store to meet the employee who had appeared to push him. The employee apologised and offered free coffee to the family but did not show them the CCTV, according to the whistleblower.
"The area manager has failed to give any repercussions and simply agreed that he simply 'lost it for a second', which isn’t acceptable in a customer-facing setting where we deal with a lot of families, children, and different situations daily," the source added. "It’s simply not safe to have someone with such a short circuit in this kind of job if he’s capable of this."
A Costa Coffee spokesman said: “We have recently become aware of an incident that took place early June at a Costa Coffee drive-thru in Barry. The drive-thru is owned and operated by a franchise partner who is currently conducting an internal investigation into the incident."
A South Wales Police spokesman said the force received a "third-party report" of the incident. He added: "Officers attended the location and spoke to all parties concerned. No complaint of assault has been made and therefore the matter has been finalised."
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