A pub has rejected claims made by a pathology team about a leak during their work Christmas lunch.

The manager of Marquis of Granby, in Epsom, said he was dumbfounded by an Epsom Hospital pathology reception team member’s account of the meal on December 6.

Manager Craig Herbert said their claim that waitresses obviously walked through the leak to and from the kitchen cannot be correct because the pub uses a dumb waiter.

Mr Herbert said: "I’m astonished she said they ate ‘surrounded by faeces’.

"That’s totally untrue."

Mr Herbert said it was the first time water with ‘a bit of a smell’ had ever come through the floor from a waste pipe under the pub and the team had all but finished their meal.

He said: "As soon as we realised what it was we acted straightaway."

He added that he sympathised with the customers who had to cut their night short and had offered them compensation.