A BASINGSTOKE man and his pregnant wife, who had just got off the night shift at Basingstoke hospital, were turned away from McDonald’s after queuing for half an hour.

The couple, who preferred to remain anonymous, visited the Basingstoke Leisure Park outlet at lunchtime on Saturday, but after waiting their turn were told they had entered from the wrong direction.

Staff allegedly told them they would not be served and would have to go back and queue – even though they had already done so for 30 minutes.

The couple also say that a family in a car behind them were told the same thing, despite having a diabetic child on board who had recently taken his insulin and needed to eat as soon as possible.

The husband told the Gazette: “They need to improve that process because otherwise there’s going to be so many people in the same situation.

“And like the person who had the diabetic child [in the car behind], that could be a dangerous situation if some one really does need food and those people are being unreasonable.”

The husband says he and his wife, who works as an ICU nurse at Basingstoke Hospital, had decided to treat themselves to a McDonald’s as they hadn’t had a chance to do the weekly food shop, with him working full-time and his wife just coming off the night shift.

They say they had approached McDonald’s via the slip road that joins Churchill Way West with Leisure Park Road, and recall passing a man in a high vis jacket who gave them no instructions.

But upon nearing the front of the queue, a member of staff said they should have queued via Euskirchen Way, near the cinema – something the employee in the high vis jacket had not explained.

And shortly after, when they reached the service window, they were told they would not be served and should instead return to the back of the queue, which by this point was even longer than before.

“We had been queuing half an hour at that point, and the queue was even bigger than when we arrived,” the husband told the Gazette.

“Who queues that much for a McDonald’s? It’s not life or death.”

Even more confusingly, a Ford Focus which had entered from the same direction and was queuing in front and was allowed to be served as normal.

The couple explained that no one had told them where they should queue, to which staff apologised and said they would switch the employee who should have been directing traffic. But still they were not served.

After approaching the manager and being told there was nothing that could be done, the couple headed home and went without.

“He just said, ‘what do you want me to do? I can’t serve you.’ All we wanted to do was have a McDonald’s,” said the husband.

“We just came back home, my wife was starving, obviously, and I made some food with what little we had left. I work full-time, and my wife is on shifts. McDonald’s was an easy way out for us but then that fell through.

“What irks me is they accepted liability, they said they would replace that member of staff, but they were still unwilling to do the right thing and say, ‘we messed up, we will make it right and move on.’”

He added: “These are strange times we live in, sadly customer service and common decency have taken a big step backwards.”

McDonald’s has been contacted for a comment on the situation.