‘Freedom from Fear’ is aimed at preventing the verbal and physical abuse of shop-workers and Eastleigh MP, Chris Huhne, has visited the Hedge End Co-op to confirm his support for the campaign as well.

According to the shop-workers’ union, Usdaw – the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers – one in every 10 shop-workers has been physically assaulted while at work and every minute of every working day a shop-worker somewhere is verbally abused, threatened with violence or physically attacked.

Tempers can run particularly high when young people are refused alcohol.

Chris Huhne said, ‘There have been too many cases where angry young people who are challenged for identity before buying booze take it out - sometimes with abuse and sometimes even with violence - on shop-workers who are just doing their job.

‘This is completely unacceptable as they are applying the law, and would face serious consequences themselves if they were to sell to under-age drinkers.’

Hedge End Co-op’s store manager, Christmas Steve Brown, commented, ‘The key problem is lack of respect for shop-workers when they refuse to sell to under 25s. You get too much abuse from those who are refused.’

And Andrew Hodges, duty manager, confirmed, ‘I've had bad experiences when people who were banned from the store would hang around until the end of my shift to get even. It's not good when people are picked on for only doing their job.’

So to help customers ‘keep their cool’ the campaign is also handing out stress balls over the Christmas period.

The ‘Freedom for Fear’ campaign was launched by Usdaw in 2002.