A DISTRAUGHT shopper was left in floods of tears after she was asked to leave a packed Blackburn superstore.

Elizabeth Tomlinson, 47, of Ivinson Road, Darwen, was shopping with two friends in the What Everyone Wants store at the new Townsmoor Retail Park in Blackburn, when a shop assistant asked her to leave.

She asked to see the manageress, and says she was told she had been in the store too often and had to leave.

Mrs Tomlinson and her aunt Lillian Fox and friend Susan Askey immediately dropped their shopping baskets onto the shop floor and walked out, with Mrs Tomlinson in tears.

She said: "I've never been so embarrassed in all my life - the shop was full of people.

"I'd been in on Thursday for the first time and bought a couple of things and I recommended the store to my friends. On Saturday we got the bus into Blackburn to have a look in. We were just wandering round looking at things and putting stuff in our baskets to buy.

"We were walking towards the till when this shop assistant said she'd been told to ask us to leave.

"When we confronted the manageress she said I'd been in here too often and she didn't really need a reason to ask me to leave. It was only the second time I had been in the shop and nothing like this has ever happened to me in my life before."

Mrs Tomlinson claims the incident embarrassed her in front of dozens of people.

Her friend Susan Askey said: "She is distraught. We couldn't believe what happened. We were just shopping, minding our own business and would have spent about £60 or £70 between us in the store if we hadn't been thrown out."

The manageress of What Everyone Wants refused to comment on the incident.

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