Council offers £2,000 compensation to Hackney newsagent over Olympic bunting bungle

Vindicated: Hamdy Shahein outside his newsagents shop in Stoke Newington High Road. Photograph: Hackney Citizen

Hackney Council has offered compensation to a Stoke Newington newsagent who was harassed and humiliated over the decorating of his shop with Olympic bunting.

In a letter the council offered Hamdy Shahein the sum of £2,000 for loss of trade and a further £200 for the “inconvenience caused” by the actions of the Town Hall’s trading standards officers.

In his reply Mr Shahein said the offer was “not proportionate”.

He said the £200 offered was a “paltry sum” and accused the council of causing damage to his reputation.

However, Mr Shahein, who runs Hamdy’s News, indicated he would accept the offer and said he would give the money to charity.

He told the Hackney Citizen he sought advice from a solicitor, who told him he may be awarded more money if he went to court.

“The way I look at it, it’s taxpayers’ money,” he said, “I’ve got my apology. I don’t want to negotiate about money.”

Of the compensation, he said: “I’m giving it to charity, and if they want to increase it, for that reason only I would talk to them.”

Mr Shahein, a highly respected newsagent, was wrongly accused of selling fake or unlicensed Olympic goods and ordered to remove his bunting by council officials hours before the Olympic Torch relay was to pass his shop. Buoyed by his supportive customers, Mr Shahein requested a public apology and considered suing the council for loss of trade.

The council were forced to admit that trading standards had made a mistake and apologised for the actions of their officers. They also confirmed that the council had provided a newspaper with false information about Mr Shahein soon after the incident of 21 July.

Mr Shahein has received letters of apology from Mayor Jules Pipe and Peter Tonge from the council’s legal office, who delivered his letter in person.

Mr Tonge’s letter said there was a mix-up between old and new Olympic brands, and that “it was a LOCOG requirement for all local authority Trading Standards teams […] to protect the Olympic brand.” He apologised for the “inconvenience and distress” the officers caused.

Mr Shahein said he wants to put the episode behind him, and thanked his customers and well-wishers in the community for all their support.

Asked if he had a message for the council, Mr Shahein said: “I hope they learn a lesson from what they’ve done, and will not do it to anyone else.”