A wounded British soldier home from Afghanistan on sick leave was forced to spend the night in his car after a hotel refused him a room.

Corporal Tomos Stringer was told by staff at Metro Hotel, in Woking, that it was company policy not to accept members of the armed forces as guests. The 24-year-old had traveled to the Surrey town to help with funeral preparations for a friend killed in action.

It was so late that Cpl Stringer, who had broken his wrist jumping off an Army truck as it was attacked, had no choice but to sleep in his tiny, two-door car, arm covered in plaster.

Cpl Stringer, of 13 Air Assault Support Regiment, The Royal Logistic Corps, has now returned to Afghanistan, but his mother, Gaynor Stringer, from Criccieth, north Wales, told The Times that she is still furious about the incident.

“I’m very, very angry. It’s discrimination. They would never get away with it if it was against someone of ethnic origin,” she said.

She said they had received neither an apology nor an explanation from the hotel, which is part of a family entertainment center called The Big Apple and owned by a company called American Amusements.

"In America, they treat soldiers as heroes,” said Stringer, whose son joined the Army when he was 16 and has done multiple tours of duty in Iraq, Northern Ireland and Afghanistan.

The incident has prompted widespread condemnation from senior members of the Government, MPs, servicemen and their supporters.

Legions of army men and enthusiasts are rising up in the forums of the unofficial British Army Web site to call for a boycott of the hotel.

America was the exact same way not to long ago.

Tragic really.

He ***didnt introduce himself as military***, they asked for his ID and he ***only had his military id with him***.

Contradict much?

Contradict much?

I used to sleep underneath tanks on top of rubble from the buildings bombed that day. A car is a luxury to a soldier that's been in the field, probably told it as he was ****ed off at the situation although I could hardly see how it bothered him.

Wow You're my hero

There's a difference to sleeping rough on Operations and sleeping rough on leave

Not to your back....anyway I was just objectifying the situation.

The only hero welcomes you see are the ones organized and promoted on tv.

Not true at all...
When I flew to Georgia, theres an area where once you get off, you go up the escalators to the main floor, which is where most people wait for whoever they are picking up. I must have arrived when a bunch of people from the military got back, and everytime they came up the escalator, the whole crowd burst out clapping and hollering for them. No TV cameras, just people thanking the troops

Being a former Surrey resident, I am appauled. Poor guy. If they couldn't give him a room that could at least of given him medical attention.