A former hotel porter at a notorious drug deaths hotel claims he tried to evict drug dealers but was stopped by bosses.
Peter Dobbins has spoken out about his former employers at the Queens Park Hotel, saying he set out to drive out two dealers from the hotel after a woman suffered a fatal overdose. He says he was ordered by a manager to “let sleeping dogs lie” because police hadn’t charged anyone, reports the Daily Record.
Dobbins believes that bosses of the hotel in Glasgow, who own three other similar properties, should have done more to stop the flow of street Valium and the rising tide of deaths.
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He said: “I have clear evidence of me flagging up the fact that dealers should be evicted but being told to leave it alone. I asked how many more had to die before we took action and I was stonewalled.
“Meanwhile I read in the Daily Record of another three deaths in just 19 days at the hotel which shows that the Queens Park has massive problems that need sorting out.”
On July 21, 2020, just a couple of months after Dobbins joined the company, he exchanged a series of text messages with a manager, in which he outlined a plan to take action against drug dealers.
He claims he was told that men were seen going into a woman’s room just hours before she died of an overdose. He said he was disgusted that a woman who stayed in Room 55 at the hotel had died, yet the dealers were allowed to stay at the hotel and carry on with their trade as normal.
In a WhatsApp message to his manager he wrote: “I’ll be telling them that anyone connected to them comes back smashed I will be requesting the post mortem report of 55 and if that is valium related I will inform the police of my suspicions.
“They can then take fingerprints from the drug packets found.
“As they deserve the benefit of my doubt I will tell them that I will compile the evidence to be handed to the police. That way they can leave of their own accord.”
Dobbins is then told by his manager: “No Peter, ones who are being trouble to staff etc etc get a warning then if carry on are asked to leave.
“It’s not our concern what or why with 55 as that was dealt with and over.
“Nothing for us to get involved with as police already have the details. Let sleeping dogs lie as given enough rope they will do the damage theirselves.”
Dobbins then responds: “We do have a duty to protect the vulnerable though. Leaving them there, knowing what they are doing, is a flagrant misconduct of that duty.
“How many more people have to die?”
Dobbins, 38, was moved to the company’s Chez Nous Guest House in the city’s west end, just a few months after being appointed to the position of porter, which involved reception duties, in June 2020.
He was later sacked after his relationship with management soured.
He subsequently lost an employment tribunal, where he claimed he was discriminated against for being English.
The tribunal heard evidence related to the WhatsApp messages.
Dobbins told the Record: “My main feeling was that the hotel was responsible for the safety of residents yet we were allowing the dealing of deadly drugs to take place every day.
“We would happily evict anyone for taking too much coffee or sugar or for failing to beat a midnight curfew a couple of times. And if someone was rude or aggressive to staff they were out on their ear.
“But when I was trying to weed out drug dealers - people we strongly suspected of having caused at least one death - I was told I needed court-standard evidence.
“That disgusted me and I just didn’t want to look the other way, so I was moved to another hotel.”
Dobbins echoed previous calls for professional counsellors, social workers, and medical staff to be stationed at hotels where so many overdoses are known to be happening.
He said: “I was dealing with everything, trying to stop the dealers and even dealing with the aftermath of overdoses but I was just a porter.
“That never seemed right to me. At times the place seemed like an extension of Barlinnie, as there were so many people coming straight from prison, often with addictions issues.
“You can’t just dump people in places like the Queens Park and forget about them.”
Adam Hussain, manager of the Queens Park Hotel, said, “Peter Dobbins is a former employee who lost an unfair dismissal case, and then the subsequent appeal.
“The WhatsApp messages are a conversation between staff about a hotel guest being arrested for unknown reasons, (suspected by Peter as drug dealing) and being released.
“At no point was it confirmed by the police why he was arrested, and we had no evidence to back up Peter’s thoughts that he was dealing drugs.
“If evidence had been found, then, we assume the police would not have released the person in question.
“We have the right to cancel accommodation and would have done so if charges or evidence had been found. The hotel categorically does not allow or accept drug dealing to take place within.”
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