Shoppers ‘shaken up’ as police rush to Hastings town centre shop

Shoppers were given a fright when police pursued a suspect to the Marks and Spencer shop in the Priory Meadow Shopping Centre.
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A police spokesman said officers were conducting a welfare check at a property in St Andrews Square, Hastings, on Wednesday afternoon (December 18) when they spotted two men acting suspiciously.

The pair, a 22 and a 33-year-old man, ran away from officers but they were pursued and detained – one in a shop in Priory Meadow and the second in a shop in Queens Road – under section 23 of the Misuse of Drugs Act, police said.

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A person search was conducted and a small quantity of drugs seized, according to police.

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One customer, who was in the shop with her 14-year-old son at the time, said officers rushed into the store shouting ‘get down, get down I’ve got a Taser’.

She said: “Sheer panic and horror filled me with dread and I froze. I was pretty shaken up.”

Both men detained by officers are due to attend a voluntary interview, police said.

A spokesman for Marks and Spencer said it was a police matter unrelated to the shop and could not comment further.