Food bank volunteers have been given body cameras to wear after facing a torrent of abuse and even being spat at.

Gillingham Street Angels has operated in Skinner Street since 2018 and has seen demand for its services increase amid the ongoing cost of living crisis.

Yet alongside this it has also recorded a worrying rise in abuse aimed towards the charity’s volunteers.

CEO of Street Angels, Neil Charlick, told kmfm: “We're finding the level of abuse is rising at the food bank.

“We’re giving out a free service and helping local people so you would think to be exempt from abuse but we are finding this is happening more and more.

“Yesterday we had an incident where somebody didn’t want to take one bunch of bananas, they wanted to take a whole box and when told other people need this stuff – we're feeding 18,000 people a month so stuff needs to be shared out – the guy's gone crazy and decided to spit at the young lady.”

With this increase, the charity is having to take extra measures to protect their volunteers.

“Sadly we've had to buy body cameras.” Neil added.

“I don't want to be buying body cameras but we have to protect the safety of the volunteers there.

“We've already got a camera system in place and we have bought crowd control things to help keep it as ordered as possible but there are just some people that sadly just lack manners.

“It's really hard to get volunteers as it is telling them you're coming to do a job to help people, most like doing that sort of thing.

“But if you are telling them you are going to be spat on and abused it kind of makes it harder for us to get people.

“It's bad manners spitting is grim. We can only give out what we've been given.”

The Street Angels are busier than ever taking donations and even open their doors at 6.30am to begin taking and sorting the first food drops.

The group is also set to be one of the recipients of kmfm’s and UK Harvest’s Tonnes of Tins project which aims to collect as many cans as possible across the next six weeks.

Neil said: “It's brilliant we really appreciate you guys getting involved and doing that kind of thing. The level of food we need these days is amazing.

“The infrastructure getting this stuff done and getting these people fed we have to have refrigerated vans, walk-in fridge-freezers, a massive team of people, a forklift we need all these things just to make it possible.

“Our infrastructure has grown, our bills keep growing so support like this is amazing for us.

“The stuff we try to give out are things that can make meals from and healthy stuff so things we can turn it into a meal and there is a massive amount of people who come.

“Nothing goes to waste, even if we get some unusual tins we always find a home for something.

“These days you have a whole load of cultural difference dietary differences, vegan, gluten free people who will want halal so we are just grateful for anything because it would all go to good use.”