A Cheshire pub have received torrents of abuse after mistakenly being 'named and shamed' for failing to pay their staff the minimum wage.

Emma and Anthony Harvey, who own the Wheatsheaf Inn at No Mans Heath, were horrified to wake up on Sunday to a barrage of abusive correspondence from angry people all over the country.

They were baffled to read emails calling them obscene names and telling them they should be ashamed of themselves, until they realised the Government had released a ‘name and shame’ list of UK employers who did not pay workers the minimum wage.

One of the pubs on the list was The Wheatsheaf Inn at Onneley in Staffordshire owned by a Mr & Mrs Hampton, with no further detail given, leading readers to mistakenly assume it was actually the No Mans Heath pub, which is just outside Hampton.

Emma told The Chronicle she was ‘stunned’ at the reaction she and her husband have received from members of the public.

“When we read that first email we were just absolutely shocked,” she said.

“It was titled ‘Congratulations’ but when I opened it it went on to say we were the worst employers in the country - something they threatened to spread around the UK.

“In other emails we were called terrible names, and told we should be ashamed of ourselves.

“One man rang us from Scotland spouting profanities and before we had chance to speak and set the record straight he hung up.”

Emma, who has run the pub with her husband for two years,  added: “I just can’t believe how people have reacted to this.  Luckily we managed to speak to the BBC on that Sunday morning and they rectified the story on their website and we have been letting as many people know the truth as we can.

“But even when we emailed people back who sent us a page worth of diatribe to set them straight, not one even bothered to respond.

“We have worked very hard to get ourselves at the top of the Google search engine, and pride ourselves on providing specialist gluten free and vegan food, so this is a sting in the tail for us.

“Our locals know it’s not us and are fairly amused because they all know we actually pay more than minimum wage - all our staff are on a varied rate of job specific pay. 

“I don’t think it’s particularly constructive of the Government to name and shame, since the case is over with and the companies have been prosecuted.

“The information given in the press release was general and vague, and as a result, we have been implicated in something we are absolutely not responsible for.”