A COUPLE who were banned from Lidl for alleged shoplifting have protested their innocence, saying it was all a misunderstanding.

Sheila Lewis and Raymond Griffiths are now demanding to be let back into the supermarket, in Blackpole, Worcester.

Mr Griffiths, aged 65, claimed he was banned after he set off the shop’s alarm with a cushion on his mobility scooter.

He said: “I had this cushion I had bought from there and I forgot to cut the label off.

“It was hanging from the side of my chair.

"It set the alarm off when I went through the door.

“He [the manager] thought I had nicked it, I had to go home and find the receipt and show it to him.

“I’ve never shoplifted in my life. We are not shoplifters. I want to go back in the store.”

Mr Griffiths said he and his partner found out they were banned from the store a few months before Christmas.

He added: “The next time we went in the manager was checking everything in my scooter.

“I had WD-40 in the basket at the back of my scooter and he checked that.

"He thought I’d nicked that.

“He said I was banned for shoplifting. I used to say good morning to him every day.”

Mr Griffiths, of Chatcombe Drive, Worcester, claims the shop did not report him to the police and said he previously had problems with the manager, after taking three items back to the store.

He added: “They said ‘the next time you bring anything in that is broken, come and see me first’.”

Miss Lewis, aged 53, was also upset about the ban.

She said: “We bought something from the store every day.

“I suffer from depression and anxiety, going there gets me out of the house.”

No-one from Lidl was available for comment.