Next Worker Mistakes Colostomy Bag For Shoplifted Clothes
A Next shop assistant accused a Crohn’s disease customer of stuffing stolen trousers up his jumper – but it was just his colostomy bag.
Lee Winters-Jones was pursued out the high street store by a suspicious assistant who followed him into Marks & Spencer before confronting him.
The 31-year-old, who walks with a stick, described feeling humiliated when he was forced to show the Next employee his medical bag, which collects his waste.
The retailer has apologised for the blunder in Prestatyn, north Wales, and offered Mr Winters-Jones £200 compensation, later upped to £500.
The dad-of-two, from Colwyn Bay, said: “We were only in Next for a couple of minutes, but I did notice a guy had followed us down the stairs but I didn’t really think anything of it.
“After Next we walked to Marks & Spencer which is quite a long way away.
“I can only walk slowly and I’ve got a walking stick, but my free hand does tend to hold my colostomy bag, it’s a self conscious thing.”
“After ten minutes, he just came up to me and said that he had a reason to believe that I had stolen some suit trousers,” he continued.
“I felt forced to show him that underneath my jumper was my colostomy bag, and I told him that he had discriminated against me, he denied this.
“He said a quick sorry, then he just walked off.
“It was a horrible experience, I felt very shaken up there was a lot of people in the store, it was a public shaming and I hadn’t even done something.”
A spokesman for Next said: “We would like to pass on our sincere apologies for any distress caused to Mr Winters Jones.
“We are currently investigating this incident as a matter of urgency and liaising with the management team both at the store and head office to ensure that something like this does not happen again.”
Same Difference 
I also have crohns disease, have a colostomy and walk with a stick! I cannot imagine how this guy felt to be considered a thief and then have his privacy and something so private and personal revealed in a public environment especially. It is one thing being made to feel the increasing finger pointing and stigmatising of someone who like so many has chronic illness and a disability. This process has become an orchestrated campaign by a heartless, cruel government, so ably assisted by the news media and some of the television channels using poverty porn to pursue the divide and rule hatred of all things ill and disabled, especially in the context of welfare receipt. Often i struggle in my head about the value and future of my life in a society brimming with increasing hatred and judgemental categorisation i do not warrant help from the state, for one reason or another determined by those who believe they have the right to sit and hold authority and decision making! It is wearing me down and i consider myself to be politically aware and steadfast. I feel overwhelmed by this society of hate, not only of those like me, but the vulnerable who find themselves out of work for whatever reason, or migrants struggling to find a safe haven where they might be welcomed as refugees, attempting to evade the fears of untold terror, devastation and the most cruel methods of taking lives or raping women and girls as part of their power in conflicts.Yes, some simply desire hope and a job, a modest life, safe and secure, not a great deal to ask? However Britain in 2015 , indeed the world of political pilates washing their hands of any consequences, is not the ideal time and location to find yourself one of the targeted!
A colostomy bag or clothes from Next, he still had a load of crap up his jumper.
Who shoplifts from NEXT? Only the desperate and pikey’s