Would sirs like axes to accompany dessert?'
by John Harrington
Members of a 100-year-old secret drinking club for students at Oxford University appear to have been responsible for a bizarre incident that saw a pub trashed by 14 well-heeled young men.
The men, dressed in expensive suits and with perfect manners, had booked the private function room at the White Hart in Fyfield, near Oxford, on Wednesday last week and everything went well until afterdinner.
The group began smashing up everything in sight as a full-scale fight erupted.
"They completely trashed everything in the room," said co-owner Tracey Rogers. "But when we spoke to them they were perfectly polite. At no time were they aggressive towards us, just with each other.
"They offered a lot of money for us to keep quiet about it. They had wads of cash and said: Take £200, take £300'. We didn't want to take more than the cost of the damage they caused."
Rogers said she did not know how much it would cost to repair the damage, but the walls of the function room will have to be repainted after 17 bottles of wine were thrown at them.
She added that the group, who were mostly undergraduates from Oxford University, mentioned they were part of the Bullingdon Club, a notorious secret drinking society that has a history of drunken violence.
"We heard of [the Bullingdon Club] before and knew that they have done it to other restaurants in the area," the host added.
"This morning we spoke to the previous landlord who worked here. She said it had happened to her."
Police were called to the pub and four of the 14 men were arrested, and later released after paying £80 fixed penalty notices.
An Oxford University spokeswoman said: "The matter is currently being investigated by the university proctors. The university takes any allegations of criminal behaviour by its students very seriously."
