Child Rescue Alert at Stobo - Home of millionaire Stephen Winyard

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Child Rescue Alert at Stobo

Published: 21 Jul 2015 08:300 comments

A COUPLE who launched a worldwide search for their missing daughter visited Peeblesshire to promote a new child rescue alert system.

Kate and Gerry McCann were among a group of 30 guests and supporters of UK charity Missing People at Stobo Castle 'luxury' UK 'lair' for the first Child Rescue Alert dinner in Scotland.

Their daughter Madeleine went missing on a family holiday in Portugal eight years ago.

The local event was hosted by Stobo owner Stephen Winyard who is also a patron of the Child Rescue Alert system which is managed by the charity.

The Child Rescue Alert system, which is a partnership between CEOP, a command of the National Crime Agency, the charity Missing People and Groupcall, offers vital, rapid public outreach when a child is known to have been abducted or their life is believed to be at immediate risk.

Amber Alert, a similar system in the United States, has been responsible for finding over 750 child safe and well. In the past year, more than 280,000 people have signed up to receive free Child Rescue Alerts to their phones via sms, email and an app.

The aim of the event at Stobo was to raise funds and to encourage companies to commit to registering their colleagues and employees to the system.

Child Rescue Alert has so far been made possible thanks to support from players of People’s Postcode Lottery, who have awarded £225,000 to the project, allowing the Child Rescue Alert to launch last year.

The awareness event raised an impressive £17,700 with many of those present also pledging to encourage their colleagues to sign up to the Alert system.
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Hmmm.

LOTS OF CRA 'DINNERS', NOT SO MUCH ACTUAL 'SEARCHING'!

'impressive' £17,770, 'raised'?

SW and McS are 'millionaires'!

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The 'distraught, depressed, dispairing, parents, of Madeleine, manage to raise a smile, at last, before vigorously re-commencing their, rentlentless 'search', for her, at Stobo Castle, Scotland.'

Rude, aggressive Stephen Winyard called people liars and ruined our holiday -

And then suggested that 'lovely Lauren' might like to share a hot tub with him the next day:

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“A great stay ruined at the end by disgusting customer service - from the owner Stephen Winyard and his staff”
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Arrived on Saturday 3rd Nov in a group of 14 ladies one in her 20s the rest 30s, 40s and 50s. The organiser from our group and her mum have been going to Stobo Castle every year for 6 years and we were all looking forward to our stay.

The stay itself was wonderful. We enjoyed our dinner, breakfast and lunch, use of the spa facilities and back massages we all had. Rooms were lovely most of us were in the Park Lodge and it was great having our own rooms and a shared lounge area.

We all left feeling very relaxed and had lots of laughs during our stay and agreed this would be at least a yearly trip for us all. Perfect in early November before the Christmas period starts.

We had been on our bus heading home for about 35 minutes and had driven roughly 25 miles I believe when we received a call from my friend's husband at home to say Stobo had been in touch and we had 2 bags on the bus that did not belong to us. We immediately pulled over and checked the bags and yes there were 2 that did not belong to anyone on the bus. We contacted Stobo and after offering to meet the owners of the bags halfway my friend was told "get your taxi driver to turn around and bring the backs back" a female member of staff insisted we must do this. Now we were under no obligation to bring the bags back (Stobo could have sent someone to collect) but being decent people we decided to return the bags. We were disgusted at how we were spoken to on the telephone. 14 people at £170 each is £2380 that is the minimum we spent not to mention the extras for drinks, money spent in gift shop, juice bar etc charged on our account and items we paid cash for.

Several of us left our bags in the lounge area of the park lodge and a member of group asked a male member of staff if he could take our bags to reception. He said he would get a trolley and take them down. The bags were left in the reception area by this member of staff and the taxi driver asked the receptionist if all the bags "there" (at the front of the reception area) were ours and she said yes. I was sitting right in front of her on a chair with another member of the group and seen this for myself. We did not inspect that the bags on the bus were all ours why would we. Even if we did check we would all have looked at our own bags and not at the others so this would not have been picked up. Some of us had 2 smaller bags and some had 1 large so you could not say 14 people meant 14 bags.
 
Stobo Castle would not take any responsibility for the bags ending up on the bus they were adament it was the driver. I believed myself it was an accident - the bags had been left by the guests who were also in the park lodge beside ours, they had been lifted by the member of staff we asked to take them and left in reception, the receptionist assumed they were ours and said yes, and the taxi driver put them all in the bus. Stobo staff were rude on the telephone and blamed the driver. What shocked us was the disgusting attitude of the staff and that of Stephen Winyard when we returned the bags - no thank you for bringing them back or apology. Mr Winyard insisted the driver point out the member of staff who told him the bags there were ours (which was a horrible thing to do) and the receptionist called him a liar! Clearly trying to save her job! The driver was repeatedly called a liar by Mr Winyard and the receptionist.

Things got heated as Mr Winyard was rude and aggressive pointing his finger in the drivers face and then doing the same to my friend who organised the trip and her mother. He would not listen or take on board a word we said. The receptionist kept saying we were lying as the porter had been on lunch so could not have brought the bags down. No responsibility was taken at all. We were decent and brought the bags back we did not have to do this. You had to be there to believe what was going on Mr Winyard was angry, rude and deliberately trying to provoke our driver who was professional and did not retailate. We tried to deal with the matter in a calm and professional way but it ended up in a shouting match and we left saying we would not return to which Mr Winyard replied he did not want us to return! We must have spent nearly £2500-£3000 you would think any business owner would not want 14 angry people leaving but he did not care. Next year we will go somewhere that customers are valued. We did film some of Mr Winyards rant however his 2 young male members of staff who appeared to be acting as "minders" warned him he was being filmed. A tip for others who choose to stay - when you arrive you are told to put everything you spend on your room account and settle at the end so you don't need to walk about carrying cash. What they failed to mention at check in is that there is a 5% service charge on your final bill so our room paid £19 service charge - we would not have minded paying the charge for our treatments but items spent in the gift shop were also charged this service charge. If we had known this we would have paid cash for our gifts so watch out! And be very wary of My Winyward who just before we left was chatting up "lovely Lauren" the youngest in our group and telling her about his plans for outdoor hot tubs for our next stay, that was before he claimed he did not want us back obviously!

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ETA: From the Vanity Fair article:

Occasionally their $1,200-an-hour lawyer Angus McBride, whose salary is defrayed by Virgin founder Sir Richard Branson, Scottish businessman Stephen Winyard, and Brian Kennedy, a multi-millionaire rugby-team owner, drops in on the British tabloids to protest headlines such as Portuguese paper smear: “Kate killed madeleine as Gerry played tennis.”

There appears to be a royal connection, be it an indirect one, with Stobo Castle. Stephen Winyard's late mother Gloria P M Winyard "Brought up in South and West London, her passion for Stobo Castle was probably founded when staying with her grandparents, who lived in Windsor Castle while in royal service".

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‘Amber Alert, a similar system in the United States, has been responsible for finding over 750 child safe and well. In the past year, more than 280,000 people have signed up to receive free Child Rescue Alerts to their phones via sms, email and an app.’
 
And it’s been even more successful over here.
 
One (ONE!) alert in the first year iirc and that was for a girl who just stayed away and then came back home when she felt like it.

One big happy family!  Strange that the missing child collective select the Missing People charity to support their cause.  The Amber Alert System is essentially about missing children but the Missing People charity is not age specific - why didn't they choose a charity that specifically relates to children?

I expect this press report has been discussed before on this forum but I'm posting because I think it highlights some very pertinent points - I'm sure there's no harm in a reminder.

a)  One of Scotland's most wealthy businessmen can today be revealed as the mystery donor helping fund the fight to clear the names of Madeleine McCann's parents.

b)  Mr Winyard revealed he has already paid for DNA tests carried out on the Renault Scenic hire car used by the McCanns nearly four weeks after Madeleine's disappearance.

c)    Mr Winyard, who splits his time between Stobo Castle and his home in Monaco, was approached by Gerry McCann for financial help in September.

d)  I remain absolutely confident there is totally insufficient evidence to link them to Madel-eine's disappearance and I'm absolutely confident that in the fullness of time they will be fully exonerated," he said.

e)  Mr Winyard, who has met Gerry twice and Kate once, said the couple "deeply resented" the allegations made against them in the Portugese press.  "Their main concern is to get their suspect status lifted so that the search for Madeleine can continue.

f)  Mr Winyard criticised the lack of public support offered to the McCanns by the Prime Minister. Gordon Brown initially spoke to the McCanns several times on the phone. But since they were declared suspects by the Portugese authorities, lines of communication had come to a halt. .  With that in mind, I would really strongly urge that Gordon Brown, who has previously been really supportive, accede to our request for a meeting at ministerial level." 

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sallypelt wrote:There appears to be a royal connection, be it an indirect one, with Stobo Castle. Stephen Winyard's late mother Gloria P M Winyard "Brought up in South and West London, her passion for Stobo Castle was probably founded when staying with her grandparents, who lived in Windsor Castle while in royal service".

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Love to know what D of E Phil thinks of all this  fuss about the McCanns. They certainly know about it so I wonder why a "garden party" hasn't been dedicated to finding Madelaine.

Doug D wrote:‘Amber Alert, a similar system in the United States, has been responsible for finding over 750 child safe and well. In the past year, more than 280,000 people have signed up to receive free Child Rescue Alerts to their phones via sms, email and an app.’
 
And it’s been even more successful over here.
 
One (ONE!) alert in the first year iirc and that was for a girl who just stayed away and then came back home when she felt like it.

Responsible is a lie.

The awareness event raised an impressive £17,700 with many of those present also pledging to encourage their colleagues to sign up to the Alert system.
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In WHOSE 'hands', or WHERE is, this 'unimpressive' £17,700 now?

jeanmonroe wrote:The awareness event raised an impressive £17,700 with many of those present also pledging to encourage their colleagues to sign up to the Alert system.
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In WHOSE 'hands', or WHERE is, this 'unimpressive' £17,700 now?

It is a most unimpressive amount of money raised isn't it! almost as unimpressive as Kate McCann's fundraising bike ride.

What I'd like to know is did those attending the Stobo gig claim anything at all in expenses for their attendance.