Disabled man slams Tesco

Colin Dearmer, of Southcourt Avenue, says managers at Tesco, in Ravenside Retail Park, told him assistance is only available to disabled customers on Wednesdays.

Mr Dearmer says this has happened to him twice in the last three months. On both occasions he complained to the duty manager.

Tesco have told the Observer an arrangement exists at the store whereby extra staff are put on for disabled customers on Wednesdays, but "it doesn't mean" they will be refused help on other days.

But Mr Dearmer contests the situation is very different.

He said: "A misunderstanding may have some thread of truth behind it once, but not twice. And I wouldn't expect the store managers to not know what the policy is."

On both occasions Mr Dearmer says he asked for help in carrying out the family shop only to be told there was nobody available to do so. He says a manager informed him assistance was only available on Wednesdays, and such arrangements were common in a number of stores.

Mr Dearmer said: "The implication being that I should be grateful for what help was provided on Wednesdays.

"For an organisation like Tesco, which purports to provide high quality service, to all its customers, to implement such a policy is both hypocritical and indefensible. I would ask that the policy of limiting assistance to disabled customers to Wednesdays be abandoned forthwith."

Mr Dearmer has written to store manager Michael Starr with his concerns.

A spokesman for Tesco said: "For some reason we do have a high number of disabled shoppers at that store. We have this system so customers can build up a relationship with members of staff. The reason Wednesday was chosen is that it was one of the most popular.

"It is simply a staffing issue. It works very well and has been for the last six months. They get to know the staff and they can almost do their shopping for them.

"That is not to say if a customer comes in at another time they will not be given help. Any customer who comes in will be given help because the customer is the most important thing to Tesco. To say 'you can only shop on a Wednesday' is not the case at all.

"If the wrong words were used I could see how he (Mr Dearmer) could take offence. If he was offended we would like to apologise because that was not our intention and he can actually shop any time he likes."