'Bomb scare' closes 14 Tesco stores

Police refused to give details of the incidents, beyond saying the "safety alert" was a precaution. Officers from Hertfordshire, where the firm has its headquarters, said no-one had been hurt.

The force said they had launched a criminal investigation following a series of threats made to the stores.

Police said the closures affected stores in Lancashire, Suffolk, Dyfed Powys in Wales, Fife and Strathclyde in Scotland, Leicestershire, Humberside, West Mercia, West Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire and London.

A spokesman for South Wales police said the Tesco store at Riverside, Port Talbot, had been closed. "Officers will maintain a presence at the site for as long as is necessary."

Towns where stores have been confirmed to have closed were Barrhead in East Renfrewshire, Fife in Scotland, Pontefract in West Yorkshire, Market Harborough and Ashby-de-la-Zouch in Leicestershire and Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk.

Eyewitnesses said the stores started shutting in the early afternoon, with at least two people claiming they had been told the closures were due to a bomb scare.

At the Barrhead store in East Renfrewshire, staff were escorted outside and sent home for the day shortly after 12.30pm. A worker at a neighbouring shop said police had told him the Tesco shop had been shut after receiving a bomb threat, along with several other stores across the country.

A Tesco store in Dalgety Bay, Fife, was closed at 12.30pm, a worker in a nearby hotel said. The employee said: "The staff have all left for the weekend. It happened at 12.30pm, and we heard it was something to do with a bomb scare."

A spokeswoman for Leicestershire Police said stores in Market Harborough and Ashby-de-la-Zouch had been temporarily closed. Witnesses said approach roads to the main Tesco store in Bury St Edmunds was been blocked by police. Signs placed on the road said that the store was closed.