By Dan Kendrick

AROUND 1,000 students from a Worcester high school have been barred from entering a city shop.

Lidl supermarket, in Blackpole Retail Park, has banned all pupils from Elgar Technology College after complaining to the school about large numbers of students meeting there each morning.

The company said it had discrepancies with the stock count and implied students had shoplifted, but has not reported any theft offences relating to pupils to the police.

The Bilford Road school's headteacher, Tony James stressed that if pupils had done anything it would be a small minority.

"The manager said they had problems in the mornings because of the large numbers of schoolchildren there and the implication was one of theft," said Mr James.

"They informed me they were going to ban pupils and I told the heads of years to tell the students.

"It might well be that there are a handful of children who have done something."

He added that a representative of the company, off Blackpole Road, attended the school's Community Forum meetings and there was a "communications

link" between the two bodies.

Yesterday, students admitted some occasionally "messed around" outside the store, around 100 yards from the school, but said it was no reason to ban all students.

"Wrong"

Thirteen-year-old twins Ben and Dan Wyatt, claimed it was wrong to tar them all with the same brush.

"It's unfair on pupils who haven't done anything," said Ben.

"It gives the whole school a bad name when just a couple of kids might have done something wrong."

Dan added: "It's pretty annoying that none of us is allowed in, just because of what a few have done."

A police spokesman said they have previously investigated issues of shoplifting from the store but "none had direct links with the students from the college".

They added that any ban on pupils was done "independently" of the police.

Lidl declined to comment on the issue.