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00:00 I found myself entrapped on the top mezzanine floor of Asda's having gone in there to go to the pharmacy.
00:06 Whilst I was in there my wife phoned me, she'd just come out of hospital after being over the Christmas period,
00:11 admitted as an emergency case and she phoned me to say she was having problems breathing.
00:17 So I immediately wanted to get out of the store.
00:20 I went to the escalator to find that I'd been blocked off by one of the managers.
00:25 The escalator had been stopped and I could see some people down the bottom on their knees as if they were sweeping something up.
00:33 I told them I needed to get out to go and tend to my wife who'd come out of hospital and he told me to go and queue on the lift.
00:38 I went to the lift and there was this big long queue of people with trolleys trying to get into the lift, also trying to get out of the store.
00:44 And there's some doors next to that that looked like a fire escape which were locked.
00:49 So I went back to the manager and said, "Look, you need to get me out of the store, I need to go and tend to my wife who's just come out of hospital."
00:56 And he said, "I've told you you're allowed to go and queue at the lift."
00:58 And I said, "Look, you can't trap me in the store, I need to get out, please let me out."
01:03 And he said, "I've told you to go and queue at the lift."
01:05 So at that point I just ran down the stairs.
01:08 Before I left there to run down the escalator, it was evident he wasn't taking on board what I was saying to him.
01:16 And in my frustration and my desperation to get out of the store, I did verbally abuse him before I ran down the stairs.
01:23 I said what I said because he wasn't understanding the gravity of the situation and my desperation to get out of the store to go and tend to my wife
01:32 who had been in the hospital and I wanted to make sure she was okay.