STORE workers had to step between a security guard and a man who was hurling racial abuse at him, Swindon Magistrates Court heard.

The incident at the Co-op in Cavendish Square worried the guard so much he feared that without the intervention of the staff he would be assaulted.

Aaron Zawierski who had been banned from the store in the past, walked in on September 27 with his stepmother and saw someone he believed was banned, said prosecutor Anna Humphreys.

He approached the security guard to tell him, but became agitated when the guard didn’t respond as he wanted and began shouting. The guard tried to ignore it but he continued and was told to be quiet and leave.

Zawierski carried on pouring racist abuse on the man and swearing.

“He was very aggressive,” said Miss Humphreys. Store colleagues were so concerned they put themselves between him and the guard, but he kept trying go around them to get at the guard.

“The victim felt very scared that if the two members of staff had not been there he would have been assaulted,” she told the court.

When he was escorted from the store he remained outside shouting that he was going to “bang” the victim.

Zawierski, aged 24, of Denholme Road, Park South, admitted using racially aggravated threatening behaviour towards the guard.

District Judge Simon Cooper said the victim has been doing his job serving the public as a security guard when the defendant had decided to take the law into his own hands.

“It was a long and persistent confrontation with the security guard,” he told Zawierski, who has 30 convictions for 42 separate offences. “You used some of the most appalling racist language I have heard in this court.”

A probation report said he suffered from anxiety and because he wasn’t in his usual shop his anxiety was increased. That was why he behaved badly towards the guard.

When he had been under a previous community order in 2016 most of his appointments were telephone contacts or home visits because he had issues with other service users and didn’t feel he could go to the office.

He was unsuitable for unpaid work and if he was given that as part of a sentence probation felt would be setting him up to fail.

Sambreen Arif, defending, said he was sorry he had acted in the way he did. “His anxiety is more like PTSD,” she said. “He is medicated for his anxiety which started when he was assaulted by two friends. He struggled to go to the counselling the doctor offered him because it was group work.”

The judge said: “You have a record of committing public order offences so you are no blushing violet. You claim to be anxious. You dealt with this man appallingly. He was doing his job.”

He understood Zawierski would struggle, but said: “You need to change your approach because you are a threatening and violent individual.”

Imposing a 12-week prison sentence, suspended for 18 months, he said he was not satisfied with telephone appointments. Zawierski would have to do 10 rehabilitation activity days and he intended to force the issue.

An eight-week curfew between 7pm and 7am would also be put in place and Zawierski would pay the victim £100 compensation.