A CHARD woman wants to hear from other people who feel they have been “wrongly accused” in a system designed to target town centre criminals and trouble-makers.

Sheila Pope, 40, was dismayed when she found out she had been banned from entering a number of Chard stores after being put on the Radio Link blacklist.

She only found out when she went into one of the shops which participates in the scheme and an assistant asked her to leave.

Mrs Pope told the News she felt angry and embarrassed at the humiliation and immediately got in touch with Radio Link co-ordinator Derek Yeomans who told her she had been blacklisted because of an alleged incident at a Chard pub.

Although Mrs Pope admitted she had been in the pub at the time of the incident, she vehemently denied being involved in a fracas which subsequently led to her being banned from pubs and stores in the town.

“I asked Mr Yeomans on a number of occasions to show me the evidence which showed I was in the wrong,” she said. “But all he kept on saying was that he didn’t need to show me the evidence. Surely if you are accused of doing something, you are entitled to see the evidence.”

Mrs Pope was so angry she contacted Yeovil MP David Laws who has taken up the case on her behalf.

Mr Yeomans has now told the MP in a letter that the evidence he had was a written statement from someone he knew and described as “mature, sensible and level headed.”

Mrs Pope said: “If this was in the Magistrates, it would have been laughed out of court.

“I just wonder how many other people have been banned from shops based on assumptions and hearsay? I would like to hear from them.”

Mr Yeomans was unavailable for comment when contacted by the News but he told Mr Laws in his letter that given Mrs Pope’s protests he had had no-one come forward to support her arguments.