A pensioner has demanded an apology from Asda after being banned from the store for running down a closed travelator to get home to his seriously-ill wife.<br /><br />Full-time carer Andrew Oliver, 68, was attempting to rush out of the store after receiving a call from his wife that she was struggling to breathe, when workers tried to stop him from using the travelator in Sittingbourne, Kent.<br /><br />The former financial advisor has been a full-time carer for his wife Vanessa since retiring two years ago.<br /><br />She has chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), which causes reduced airflow from the lungs. She also suffers from asthma.<br /><br />The 69-year-old, who was diagnosed in 2016, was taken to hospital in an ambulance on Christmas Day having not eaten for 72 hours.<br /><br />She was allowed back to the family home in Bobbing, Kent, on December 28.<br /><br />On January 7, Andrew visited the store to get some shopping and medical supplies.<br /><br />He explained: “I stood at the pharmacy for about five minutes but no one paid attention to the people queueing so I got frustrated and went to go get some other things from the shop floor.<br /><br />“While I was up there, my wife phoned and asked me to come home. She was coughing and struggling to breathe.”<br /><br />Andrew, who has irregular heart rhythms and is currently being monitored for prostate cancer, continued: “It’s not uncommon for her to call me when I’m out.<br /><br />“There have been a number of times where I’ve been out shopping and had to push the trolley to one side, run out and go back home. I normally sort her out and go back to the supermarket and carry on shopping.<br /><br />“On this particular day, I was upstairs and as soon as she called me I rushed back to the travelator. But one of the managers had put a chair in front of it and was stopping people from going down.”<br /><br />He says it had been stopped because glass had been dropped on it which needed cleaning up.<br /><br />He added: “I told the worker I needed to get home to my wife who had just got out of hospital and he told me I had to go and use the lift.<br /><br />“I walked back to where the lift is and there was a massive queue of people standing there with trolleys all trying to get in. You’d be lucky to get three trolleys in there at a time.<br /><br />“There is a fire escape which was locked and a girl came out. I asked if I could go down the stairs but she told me it was for staff only.<br /><br />“I went back to the travelator and told the deputy manager he had to let me out. I said ‘you cannot trap me in this store, please find a way to get me out’.<br /><br />“In the frustration and anxiety of not being able to get out to get home, I did swear at him and I addressed him in a manner he did not appreciate and told him to go **** himself.<br /><br />“I then ran past the chair and down the travelator and he ran behind me asking what I’d said, so I said it again.”<br /><br />As he made for the exit, he was told he was now banned from the store.<br /><br />Having got back home and helped Vanessa with her breathing, Andrew pondered the situation and decided to return to the store on January 10.<br /><br />Although he fully admits he was verbally abusive, he wanted to make the point that the staff member could have been more flexible having had the situation explained to him.<br /><br />He approached a security guard and asked whether he was definitely banned.<br /><br />It was then confirmed by a manager that he won’t be allowed back in the store for four weeks.<br /><br />He added: “I’m banned. I’m not that bothered about not being able to go back to Asda but I feel that the first member of staff should have and could have evaluated the situation and what I was presenting to him and dealt with it totally differently to how he did.<br /><br />“He did not appreciate or take into account my reason for getting out or do anything to help me which is why it ended up that way.<br /><br />“In the frustration and anxiety of not being able to get out to get home, I did swear at him...”<br /><br />“I feel the store owes me an apology as the assistant manager ignored my reason and desperation to get out of the store and spoke to me like I was a four-year-old.”<br /><br />He now plans to shop at one of the town’s other supermarkets although he did like Asda because it was only two miles from home.<br /><br />Its pharmacy is also open on Sundays which was useful – he says he’ll now have to travel 20 minutes to Gillingham for medicine if needed.
