A bar in Accrington has come under fire after “disgusting” joke about missing teenager, Jay Slater, was posted to its Facebook page.

Screenshots of the post, seen by our sister paper Lancashire Telegraph, showed a joke about the Oswaldtwistle teenager posted to The Bees Knees Accrington's Facebook page on Sunday.

It was a repost of an image of Jay and a football with the caption ‘both not coming home’ - in reference to the search for the missing 19-year-old, and England's shaky Euro 2024 campaign.

The post has since been deleted. The Bees Knees claims it was not posted by a member of the bar staff but by a member of the media marketing company Affordable Social.

The pub claimed the company posted “light-hearted humour, good content and sports talk” to its Facebook pages.

It is understood that the person who created the post is no longer working for Affordable Social.

The Bees Knees no longer works with Affordable Social after the pub “did not receive an adequate explanation” as to why this happened.

A representative for The Bees Knees Accrington has also donated £1,000 to the GoFundMe set up to help the search for Jay.

There has been outrage on social media since the joke was posted. One person described the post as "utterly disgusting".

A spokesperson for AJP Pubs, which manages The Bees Knees Accrington, said: “A conversation between Bees Knees Directors and Affordable Social has taken place in which we have decided to terminate our contract with immediate effect, after not receiving an adequate explanation into how this happened.

“Affordable Social were challenged three months ago to improve our social media pages via light-hearted humour, good content, and sports talk.

“The post that made it onto the page was neither one of the above and was highly insensitive and deeply offensive.”

A spokesperson for AJP Pubs said staff have been receiving threatening messages.

A spokesperson said: “As a business, we are utterly gobsmacked that this has happened and how somebody could find good humour in a missing boy.

“I can’t stress enough nobody within the pub company has posted this status, some of which are receiving threatening messages which is completely unacceptable. 

“As a company, we are East Lancashire based with our head office in Blackburn, we fully understand the impact this news about Jay has had on the area. We all have our fingers crossed for his safe return to the UK.

“We however fully appreciate the damage has been done and nothing can change this however we will make a donation to the family fund of £1000 to assist the search for Jay.

“Our challenge is to be better, we will be looking at recruiting a social media company who share our beliefs in how we operate as a company so this never happens again.”

In a Facebook post, a spokesperson for Affordable Social said: “This morning (July 30) an employee posted something that does not reflect our brand standards or our client Bees Knees Accrington and has caused offence to others and upset to those involved.

“We are deeply distressed by the post, which was removed minutes after being posted.

“The employee responsible for this post no longer works for Affordable Social. We sincerely apologise to everyone affected by this incident.

“We are committed to upholding our values and ensuring that such an incident does not occur again. Thank you for your understanding and support as we work to make things right.”

Affordable Social has been approached for further comment.