YORK shop staff told today how they run a regular gauntlet of violence and abuse.

Details of insults and aggression aimed at vulnerable city traders emerged as a new survey laid bare the national hazards facing shop workers.

The retail crime report by the Co-op charts an alarming rise in the use of weapons against staff, and till snatches and burglaries on convenience stores across the country.

Staff in almost one in three corner shops surveyed experienced terrifying violent attacks last year, according to 2,500 stores and 60,000 Co-op staff who were questioned.

Daily abuse and threats of physical harm have led one York newsagent to sell up after six years in the city.

The South Bank retailer - who asked not to be named - is packing up after threats culminated in a knifepoint till snatch last April. The ordeal left an elderly female staff member too traumatised to continue working behind the till.

The unhappy trader also blamed the number of drug users entering his store as a major reason for the move. He told the Evening Press: "I'd rather not be associated with some of the people we get in here."

Linda McFadden, the York region representative for the shop workers' union USDAW, said attacks on newsagent staff sometimes stretched beyond working hours.

Staff have been left "terrified to walk home" after regular threats in an Acomb store, she revealed. She called for swift court action against offenders.

Fulford Express owner Meral Tilkidigi said verbal abuse of shop workers - particularly after refusing to sell alcohol to teenagers - was commonplace. "Everyone has this problem from the local kids," he added.

But Kanti Patel, manager of Heslington Road newsagents, said racist abuse after refusing to serve alcohol to children was a relatively rare problem.

He said: "We get racist abuse from kids, mostly from other areas, as we know the parents here. We're lucky, I suppose."

The Co-op study also shows violence against shop staff rose by nine per cent to 763 incidents between January 2003 and January 2004.

Weapons were used in 74 per cent of robberies, the report revealed, while total recorded shop crime was up more than a third to 34,530.

The Co-op's chief executive, Martin Beaumont, said: "The continuing rise in retail crime, especially in violent assaults on staff, is very worrying and totally unacceptable."

The study - the largest of its kind in the convenience store sector - comes ahead of USDAW's Respect For Shopworkers Week, which starts next week and is backed by the Co-op.

Lynsey Wray, deputy manager at Jacksons, Bootham, said: "When we get shoplifters and try and stop them they do get violent.

"I've been spat at before and the abuse is terrible. You get called all sorts."

Joanne Stephenson, supervisor at One Stop, Walmgate, said her bosses decided to get tough after a spate of thefts and abuse at staff.

"We have a security guard in every night and that does nip things in the bud."

"The police have helped as well."

Updated: 10:53 Wednesday, June 30, 2004