Fury over Wowcher promo urging shoppers to ‘snap up deals quicker than a croc can catch a kid’

Wowcher has been branded “distasteful” after pumping out a promotional email urging shoppers to “snap up these deals faster than a croc can catch a kid”.

The website sent out the email on Saturday – just hours after a three-year-old boy was attacked by a crocodile after being allegedly thrown into the enclosure. The boy was visiting the attraction with his family, who watched in horror as he was dropped about 15ft and then attacked by the croc.

He had landed on a concrete walkway, resulting in a suspected broken arm and pelvis and then ended up in the water. Police said: “He was attacked by a crocodile.” Despite the harrowing incident, Wowcher distributed an email with the subject line: “Snap up these deals faster than a croc can catch a kid!”

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It faced a backlash, with punters sharing screengrabs of the email and saying they should be “ashamed”. One wrote: “Very distasteful.”

Another said: “I have a dark sense of humour, but I really don’t know what Wowcher are thinking here. Imagine if the parents received this?!” Elsewhere a dismayed recipient said: “Do you think this is funny? You should be ashamed of yourselves. Apologise immediately.” And another said: “Talk about seriously bad taste. Who on earth thought that this subject line was ok?!”

A spokesperson from Wowcher said: “We are extremely sorry for an email subject line sent by Wowcher yesterday. The wording was unacceptable. It should never have been written, it was never approved for use. The responsibility sits with us and we are urgently reviewing how our processes failed. We recognise the hurt and distress it has caused, particularly for the young child’s family at this unimaginably difficult time.

We are reviewing all scheduled marketing content while we urgently strengthen our creative, approval and sign-off safeguards. There is no excuse for this. We apologise unreservedly and will take the necessary steps to make sure this does not happen again.”

It comes after police were called to Johnson’s Zoo in Old Hurst, near Huntingdon, Cambs, on Thursday. Police arrested a man, 30, on suspicion of attempted murder, and later released him on bail until September 18 saying he was “not fit for interview”.

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Staff members, including the zoo owner’s wife Tracey Johnson, 55, and one of their sons, Edward, 29, were hailed heroes after jumping into the enclosure, grabbing the boy and carrying him to safety. Chris Newman, director of the National Centre for Reptile Welfare, said of the crocodiles: “To bite is their natural reaction. They are predators.

“They’re used to people and well fed but it would still be their nature to snap. The issue is the force of the bite can be horrific and it depends what size the crocodile was.”

Mr Newman, 67, is a friend of the Johnsons. He added: “My heart goes out to Tracey and to the child. She’s a lovely person, but she can be a tigress and her motherly instincts would have kicked in. I know her. That’s exactly what Tracey would have done and if she was involved she would have known how to deal with the crocodiles.”

One mum said she heard a blood-curdling scream at the time the three-year-old boy was thrown into the enclosure. The woman, in her 20s, said: “We were sitting on a bench in the park between the bear and the crocodile enclosure. We heard a loud scream.

“Never in a million years did I think someone was in with the crocodiles. The whole zoo went really quiet and it felt really eerie.” She added: “Someone later described the man that did it and said he was with carers. I don’t know if it was definitely him but I saw one bloke of a bigger build, he had two carers with him and they weren’t paying him much attention.

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“If it was him, his carers were maybe ten metres behind him and not paying much attention. They were English and chatting among themselves and on their phones.”