Family's horror over rat in Winchester supermarket (From Basingstoke Gazette)

Family's horror over rat in Winchester supermarket

6:36pm Friday 22nd March 2013 in Winchester By Wesley Rock

A MOTHER from Winchester has described the moment she saw a “massive” rat running down the aisle in Sainsbury’s.

Hayley Richards, 27, from Andover Road, was with her seven-year-old son and two-year-old nephew when the rat appeared near the bakery in Sainsbury’s Badger Farm.

“All of a sudden my nephew started screaming. Then it ran up the aisle and so we left the shop. We just felt dirty. I don’t want to buy anything from there.

“My nephew was really screaming because it was right behind him.”

The incident was just after 9am on Thursday (March 21) and Ms Richards said she saw a member of staff chasing the rat after she alerted other customers. She said her mother, Angela Ford, had since been in touch with the store manager to complain.

A spokesman for Sainsbury’s said: “We have the highest standards in all of our stores and whilst instances of this nature are very rare, we take them extremely seriously.

"We are working with independent experts to make sure it doesn’t happen again and will be contacting Mrs Ford and her family to apologise.”

It was unclear what happened to the rat.