Supermarket chain Tesco has been forced to apologise after dashcam footage of one of its temporary workers being spat at was unavailable.

Mark Welch, who took up the temporary role as a delivery driver during the height of the coronavirus pandemic, said he was assaulted on the A20 London Road, Aylesford, near B&Q.

The Adisham Green, Kemsley, resident was waiting at a set of traffic lights on bank holiday Monday, May 25, at about 6pm, when a car pulled up next to him and one of the occupants threw a water balloon through his open window.

It failed to burst but a man leant out of the car and spat on the 51-year-old's arm before it drove away.

Mr Welch, who had to temporarily stop working as a driving instructor during lockdown, said he sounded his horn before the car heavily braked in front of him.

Despite asking his manager to request the dashcam CCTV footage from head office within an hour of it happening, Mr Welch waited almost a month to hear it was not available.

An email seen by KentOnline confirms police shelved the investigation after no video that could help was produced.

"This was going on for weeks."

Following the altercation, which was at the height of the Covid-19 crisis, with hundreds of fatalities each day, Mr Welch had a coronavirus test which fortunately came back negative.

He said: "I think Tesco were very poor in the way they dealt with it.

"This was going on for weeks to see if they had the footage or not. I think the requests were just getting ignored.

"I thought it would've all been on camera and then I could've prosecuted but because there's no footage of the person doing it the police can't do anything.

"Being spat at any time is bad enough but during a pandemic you don't know what you're dealing with.

"I was driving a Tesco van, in a Tesco uniform, while on duty and they still couldn't back me up.

"I thought it would've all been on camera."

"I felt as though it was a failure in their duty of care to me."

Mr Welch left the role earlier this month.

It is not known whether the footage was deleted, recorded over or simply lost.

A Tesco spokesman said: "We never tolerate any abuse of our colleagues and we're very sorry that on this occasion Mr Welch's complaint was not investigated as we would expect.

"We've reminded our colleagues of the importance of acting immediately on any complaints they receive so this does not happen again."

A police spokesman said: "Anyone with information should call Kent Police on 01622 604100, quoting crime reference 46/88885/20."

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