A food bank volunteer who was delivering supplies had to use a crate to ward off someone trying to help themselves to free stuff when they shouldn’t.

The incident took place at the Gillingham Street Angels site in Skinner Street at around 1pm last Monday, an hour after the shop had shut for the day.

Street Angels chief executive Neil Charlick said: “One of our drivers was dropping off food from a supermarket ready for the next day.

“While he was loading the stuff in, a man went into the shop while he wasn’t in there, walked in and started helping himself.”

He said the driver asked him to leave but the man became aggressive and carried on taking stuff.

Neil continued: “The driver, who is about 60, then had to use one of the food crates to defend himself while the man was still trying to hit him.

“He managed to use the crate to push him and get him outside the shop and a witness got involved and told him to leave him alone.”

The witness managed to get a photo of the man before calling the police, but he was reportedly threatened as well.

A police spokesperson confirmed officers were called to a report a man had been assaulted by a delivery driver.

They added: “Officers attended and spoke to the informant, however the delivery driver had left prior to officers’ arrival.

“From the information obtained police determined that no offences were deemed to have been committed.

“Should further information become available then officers will investigate accordingly.”

The ordeal was caught on CCTV footage, and Neil says the person looked to be between 20 and 25.

He sent a photo of the man into a group chat with all the volunteers, and he was identified as someone who regularly attends the food bank.

Neil says there has been a worrying rise in abuse aimed towards volunteers in the past few years.

In July 2023, the charity had to buy three body-worn cameras after one of its staff members, who has leukaemia, was spat at.

The cameras set the charity back around £600 in total, with CCTV being installed shortly before this at a cost of £1,000.

Neil explained: “These are things we really shouldn’t have to be spending money on.

“Everything started to get a lot worse after Covid. During the pandemic, supermarkets were throwing all sorts at us so we had some good stuff.

“But since then, we’ve not been getting things like joints of beef and salmon.

“We still give food out and cook about 200 meals a day but we don’t always have everything.

“We get people turning up with shopping lists asking why we don’t have any cheese or beef, and these people can become abusive because they’re not getting what they want for free.”

He said while the incident last week was the first physical incident, staff receive “a lot” of verbal abuse on a regular basis.

He added: “People are called names regularly, that’s something they’ve kind of got used to.

“We’ve got a local policeman who pops past and makes sure everything is okay but it's become such a big problem now that it’s become the norm.

“Before Covid, food banks were mainly attended by homeless people and now they’re attended by everybody. People are struggling in general.

“Our footfall is probably better than any other shop in Gillingham which is grim really because we’re a food bank. It shouldn’t be like that, it’s madness.

“It’s a shame that it’s got to that point, and now staff are worried about coming in. Now if anyone kicks off we shut the door, lock it and call the police.

“But it’s hard for the police to do anything. We’ve lost volunteers because of the abuse as well and it’s hard to get new ones.

“People come in because they want to do something good and help people out and they get abused so it’s not nice for them.

“[It’s worse] Especially in the evening because we get people that are drunk or under the influence and there's a lot more trouble.”

Gillingham Street Angels was founded in 2018 by Neil, his wife Tracy, and a group of friends. They give away food, furniture, school uniforms and bedding to those who need it.

Neil says the food bank looks after about 25,000 people in the Medway Towns every month.

He has not reported the latest incident to police himself as he says they are “not going to do anything about it”.

He said: “The witness did ring them up but you just get a crime number these days.

“A crime number is not going to keep my volunteers safe so what’s the point?

“If the man turns up again I have told staff to call the police straight away and not to approach him.”