Hard-of-hearing film fans said their complaints fell on “deaf ears” after they found a cinema had forgotten to turn on subtitles for the flick they were watching.

David Deacon, of Wallington, was part of a group that went to a screening of Bridget Jones’s Baby at the Vue cinema in Croydon’s Grants Entertainment Centre.

The 24-year-old charity worker was looking forward to seeing the film on Sunday, September 18, but was frustrated to discover the screening did not feature subtitles - even though Vue’s website advertised it as doing so.

Mr Deacon said: “I noticed that there were some deaf people in the audience [including] myself so I went down to ask if they would turn the subtitles on, which the staff then contacted each other to do so and I then headed back to the screening.

“After 25 minutes [of the film], the subtitles were still vacant so I decided I had had enough and went to complain to the manager. Ironically it would seem that it fell on deaf ears and the only solution the manager would give is to give out complimentary tickets.”

In a letter to Mr Deacon, Vue apologised for the error and said: “Upon investigation, it appears that, due to an unfortunate human error, the wrong file was uploaded onto the projector of your screen in place of the subtitled version of Bridget Jones’s Baby.

“Uploading a 4k file onto a projector is a process that requires several hours to complete, therefore it was impossible for the management team to rectify this error on time, and for this, I would like to offer my most sincere apologies.

"If such mistakes do occur, I would like to assure you that they remain a rarity; nevertheless please be assured this incident was brought to the attention of Vue Croydon Grants’s General Manager, and further improvements will be implemented to ensure subtitled performances are correctly scheduled in the future.”

A Vue spokeswoman said: “We appreciate that subtitled screenings are highly valued by our deaf and hard of hearing customers and have since scheduled an additional subtitled showing of Bridget Jones at Vue Croydon Grants this Sunday at 1.30pm.

"We have reached out to Mr Deacon, and invited him to attend this screening as our valued guest.”