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Shopper was terrified in H&M opening scuffles


A SHOPPER caught in the scuffle to get free vouchers at a store opening says she was “terrified” during her ordeal.

Nicola Davis, 31, of Coronation Avenue, Colchester, has been left with a bruised lip and ribs and a sprained ankle after queuing with her friends at the opening of the new H&M store in Colchester on Thursday morning.

Ms Davis had to be taken into a back room of the store after she had a panic attack while getting caught in the stampede.

She said: “Me and my friends were getting pushed and pulled all over the place.

“My friend got handed a voucher by a shop assistant and it was immediately snatched out of her hand. She was given another one, but she was pushed to the ground and the voucher got taken off her.

“I got punched in my head, elbowed in the mouth and pushed to the ground. I was terrified and in so much pain.

“It was just so badly organised. They should have known something like that would happen.

“I will never do anything like that again.”

The clothes store was celebrating the opening by giving out free vouchers, worth from £5 to £50, to the first 100 customers to enter the store.

A store spokesman said while there had been some pushing and shoving when the doors were initally opened, this had soon been controlled.

Comments(8)

RitchieHicks says...
2:46pm Mon 15 Mar 10

Hundreds of people queuing for hours for a potential £5 to £50 voucher at the risk of being crushed. For what? £5 to spend in a shop? This is a typical example of greed. H&M are laughing - they got front page on the Gazette and loads of word of mouth, all for a total expenditure of about £500 worth of cost clothing. That's very cheap advertising and everyone - even the Gazette - fell for it. I wonder how many of the “terrified” people will still shop at this store?
.
You reep what you sow. Wake up greedy people.

Jess says...
2:59pm Mon 15 Mar 10

i think it's sad that one would punch someone in the head to get a voucher. bunch of chavs.

Voter99 says...
3:27pm Mon 15 Mar 10

Mr Hicks and Jess Maine / Colchester are spot on with their comments.

What a sad spectacle.

Citizen 139 says...
3:30pm Mon 15 Mar 10

Lets not forget the person who got caught carrying a knife too!

romantic says...
5:26pm Mon 15 Mar 10

Amazing what people will do for a few quid's worth of discount on stuff they probably don't especially want anyway! Compare and contrast with the orderly queues outside Liquid and Route - maybe the youngsters are not so bad after all?

Does make you wonder how this is news, though - opening day scrums at sales are nothing new. Maybe I'm being horribly unfair to somebody I don't know, but is this perhaps an attempt to gain a few freebies as compensation?

PROOFREADER says...
9:24pm Mon 15 Mar 10

The thought of going shopping in Colchester terrifies me too. I would rather stay at home!

Boris says...
12:38am Tue 16 Mar 10

What a vulgar shop H&M must be: horrible people, horrible customers. Even worse than Tesco. I shan't be going there.

Shadow Demon says...
1:53pm Tue 16 Mar 10

Boris wrote:
What a vulgar shop H&M must be: horrible people, horrible customers. Even worse than Tesco. I shan't be going there.
Nothing like tarring everyone with the same brush eh Boris?


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