“Right now I have very little body fat left. This is likely to be my last goodbye“. They were the words, in a video recorded on July 10, 2020, by John Shepherd. A former British teacher who was 62 years old at the time. 40 days earlier he declared himself on hunger strike for a strange lawsuit he had with the Marriott hotel chain. He blamed them and the Minor chain for having built a parking lot in Bangkok (Thailand) that ended up causing him to lose his house. And he asked them for a compensation of 3.5 million pounds.
That case was echoed by the main British media, which insisted on Shepherd’s delicate state of health. Even the then Bishop of London, Sarah Mullally, urged compassion from the hotel chain after the case became public. “Given your current situation and its fragility, I am writing to urge you to consider approaching John once more. It would be tragic if he ended her life because she saw no other solution,” the bishop wrote to the chain.
But that one it was not his “last goodbye”, just as advertised. Shepherd ended up abandoning that strike, but has returned to the charge. And this time he has decided to do it from within. Last Thursday he donned a wig and booked a room at the NHow London hotel, a brand new hotel just opened by the Spanish chain NH in London. As his enemies in Minor are part of the NH shareholding, Shepherd decided to start his new adventure in one of his rooms.
The notice
This is how he has been able to verify it in scoop The Newspaper of Spain, who has contacted the hotel chain. From NH they have confirmed this point and have issued a statement in which they reveal that “during the afternoon of April 12, 2023, Nhow London Hotel learned of the intentions of a guest to start a hunger strike inside the room in the This latest guest action stems from a complaint filed over ten years ago with the St. Regis Bangkok Hotel, a Minor Hotels property and managed by Marriott International, so his points were addressed in that moment, in the appropriate measure through the relevant legal channels“.
Minor Hotels’ position, according to its spokespersons, “remains the same in relation to the underlying matter; the health and well-being of guests are always of the utmost importance to us. As such, local London authorities have been informed. The Nhow London management team is working closely with the authorities regarding guidance on the situation.”
The statement concludes by ensuring that “Minor Hotels and the management team of Nhow London have expressed their concern for the well-being of the guest and expect a positive result. Once inside, he announced to the hotel staff that he was starting a new hunger strike there, which would not leave the room until they are satisfied their claims and that he put his life in the hands of the NHow workers”. A way of proceeding similar to that of the first strike.
Hunger strike
The dispute between Shepherd and the hotel chains dates back to 2008, when the Briton lived in Bangkok, where he worked at the Harrow International School in the Thai capital. There, in a condominium, he owned an apartment, in the same area where Minor International broke ground on the St. Regis hotel, before handing control over to Starwood, a hotel operator that later merged with Marriott.
According to Shepherd, those works caused him a series of discomforts. So he started a protest campaign which consisted of sending letters to the local newspapers denouncing that those works did not comply with current planning regulations. He reported that unmentioned changes to the plans had resulted in a parking lot being placed near his apartment and that there were sewage issues.
After sending those letters and getting them published, he was arrested by the Thai police. The authorities told him he was being investigated for a defamation charge. Later, while Shephard was traveling abroad, some friends informed him that there was an arrest warrant for him. She decided not to come back and later lost her apartment because of a dispute with the apartment management company.
Shepherd, who always believed that the arrest warrant and the seizure of his flat were part of a conspiracy against him, He began his first hunger strike at the beginning of June 2020. His case went viral in England and even the highest ecclesiastical spheres spoke out. The professor then began to upload videos to his networks, in which he assured that “if I die, possibly the first death by hunger strike in protest of corporate wrongdoing, Marriott will have knowingly and cruelly observed me and will have allowed me to die without to intervene”.
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Around that time, Mariott CEO Arne Sorenson met with him and asked for a “fair to both sides” resolution. But Shepherd insisted that the company is harassing him, claims that the hotel chain emphatically denied. A Marriott spokesperson told The Times that Mr. Shepherd had been given “numerous opportunities to substantiate his claims against us, which he has been unable to do,” emphasizing that “the Minor Hotels, not the Mariott, were responsible for the construction of the St. Regis Hotel, and all complaints should be addressed by them”.
Shepherd ended his hunger strike after a few days and nothing was heard of the case again until this week, in which the former English professor has decided to continue his crusade against these hotel chains, to go one step further in his protest and, now yes, attack a hotel in Minor. As of press time, Shepherd continued mutinying in one of the rooms and starting a new strike of hunger that, he assures, this time will be definitive.