Train worker sacked for serving first-class passengers sausage rolls from a bin

A train worker who served first-class passengers sausage rolls from a bin said he had ‘gone too far for the customer’.

Peter Duffy was accused of preparing sausage rolls he had ‘retrieved from a bin’ on a London North Eastern Railway (LNER) service.

Another crew member smelled a rat when he noticed the kitchen bin was empty, after first being told the sausage rolls had been thrown away.

Two passengers in first class had requested the pastry item on a LNER service departing from York on May 7 2023.

The colleague who reported concerns said: ‘Myself and a host from standard class had been in the kitchen to get ourselves food when the host who was cooking told us the sausage rolls had just gone in the bin.’

The staff member then reported hearing ‘lots of laughing’ from inside the kitchen, where Mr Duffy was based with his colleague.

The attendant said: ‘A couple of minutes later one of the hosts from first class took the sausage rolls to Coach K.

‘After I had finished my food I took my rubbish to the bin in the kitchen and this is when noticed the bins were empty and there were no sausage rolls in the bin.’

The member of staff claimed Mr Duffy had taken the food from a bin before plating and reheating them.

His colleague is then said to have given the sausage rolls to the unsuspecting customers in first class.

Mr Duffy was told that CCTV footage appeared to show him retrieving the food items from the bin in the presence of his colleague.

The footage suggested the food was then put on a plate and reheated by Mr Duffy before being served to passengers by the other staff member.

At an investigatory meeting ten days later, Mr Duffy said he was ‘a person who goes over and beyond for the customer’.

‘I clearly took them out as there were none left for people in first class but they were wrapped in foil,” he said.

‘We had totally ran out, I have just gone too far for the customer in my mind.’

Mr Duffy, who said he was suffering from anxiety and depression, claimed he was just ‘trying to do the best for the customer which I am well known for’.

A union representative at the meeting said the LNER worker ‘had suffered from a recognised condition that day, known as transient global amnesia’.

Transient global amnesia is a sudden, temporary interruption of short-term memory.

Mr Duffy’s colleague denied seeing him take the sausage rolls out of the bin.

Instead she they were laughing because she had farted, but the tribunal found her evidence was unreliable as it was likely to be self-serving.

Mr Duffy was found to have committed gross misconduct and was dismissed in July 2023.

He claimed unfair dismissal and discrimination at a tribunal in Newcastle in August 2025 but both complaints were dismissed.

The tribunal judge said on Wednesday that LNER had acted reasonably in deciding to dismiss Mr Duffy.

They decided that the actions which led to his dismissal were not a result of his disability.

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