Santa suspended after telling children about massacre

A Santa has been suspended from his job in a grotto after he allegedly told children about the US school massacre and that he was not really Father Christmas.

The man, who worked on a freelance basis at Notcutts Garden Centre in Nuneham Courtenay, Oxford, for 10 years, is alleged to have made the remarks to the children of Wendy and Steven Kennett.

They had taken their children Ryan, 10, Amy, seven, and Katie, six, to the centre on Saturday — paying £5.99 for each child to meet Santa.

But Ms Kennett told the Oxford Mail that Santa started talking about the Sandy Hook School shooting after the children had told him they had been good.

She said he replied: “Well there are bad people in the world and bad things happen, like what happened to those children in America.”

Ms Kennett said Santa then started telling the children in detail about the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School, forcing her astonished husband to interrupt him.

Father Christmas then asked the two girls to leave so he could “have a word with their brother”.

It was then Santa spoke to Ryan alone and after the chat, which the parents could not hear, the boy ran out, crying to his mother: “Santa told me he is not real, it’s just you and dad.”

The other children overheard Ryan and reacted badly.

Ms Kennett said: “I was furious. I now had three children in floods of tears.”

A Notcutts spokesman confirmed that the family had complained about the remarks. He said: “This man was a freelancer and he has been suspended from his job for the season.

“He has worked for us for 10 years without any complaint and we will be sitting down with him to discuss the incident.

“At the end of the day the customer is upset. We have apologised and we have taken steps and the family have been kept informed.”

He added the garden centre had arranged for the family, from Abingdon, to go to London to visit the Hyde Park Winter Wonderland attraction.

Unfortunately for the family the day proceeded to only get worse.

The Kennett family went for a meal at the nearby Tandem Hungry Horse in Kennington, Oxon, to cheer the children up.

There a balloon artist spoke to the children about letters they said they sent to Father Christmas.

To the parents’ astonishment the balloon artist replied: “That was a waste of time. Santa is my best friend, we went skiing last weekend and he told me that he doesn’t bother reading letters because he has got better things to do.” lA spokesman for Santa last night said: “Boys and girls can rest assured, Santa is real. He is very busy getting all the toys ready for Christmas morning.”