The battle of Primark: 3,000 customers force their way into new store

Despite the efforts of 50 security staff trying to keep control, they managed to force open the doors and tumble inside.

Many found themselves trampled in the stampede. Two staff were hurt and needed hospital treatment. The shoppers, it must be presumed, simply brushed themselves off and rushed to the rails of cut-price clothing.

Staff called on police for help and, at one stage, three officers on horseback were needed to control the queues outside.

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Primark fans started lining up in the heart of London's West End at 2am yesterday. Some claimed they had been told the company was cutting prices to £1 per item for the opening day.

But the store was selling exactly the same merchandise as it does at 163 other outlets in Britain and Ireland and at exactly the same price.

One Primark guard said: "It got pretty hairy at one point. People were being knocked to the floor and they were pushing each other out of the way to get to the front. They were like animals.

"We feared someone was going to get badly hurt and it took us a good while to calm them down."

The atmosphere was likened to the opening of an IKEA store in Edmonton, North London, in February 2005, when 6,000 customers brawled to be first in line.

Those waiting outside Primark told of rumours that everything in the shop was to be sold off for £1.

Nadia Ellington, 21, from Hackney, East London, said: "My friend works here and she told me everything was a pound today.

"She must have been told that by her boss and it clearly wasn't just her saying it because every one here seems to have heard the same thing. It looks like it was just a con to get people in."

Shoppers were faced with a wait of two hours to get inside before loading up their baskets with dresses for as little as £6 and tops for £4.

Primark has built a strong following with its remarkably low prices and ranges which draw heavily on current designer collections. The new store, covering 70,000 sq ft in Britain's most famous shopping street, previously housed Alders and C&A. It is opposite the Marks & Spencer Marble Arch store.

Primark spokesman Geoff Lancaster described the scenes before the store opened as "frisky". "The security staff handled it very well, everyone was good-natured and none of the customers were hurt," he added.

"The ironic thing is that the people at the back of the queue, who were facing a two-hour wait, could have got on a London bus, gone to our Hammersmith store and bought exactly the same stuff at the same price. There were no special offers."

He said reports that the firm promised extra price cuts were "completely untrue".