Black Friday: Walmart Chaos Reaches UK as Asda Shoppers Fight Over Deals

The chaos that usually surrounds the US shopping day Black Friday has made its way to the UK, with fights and arrests breaking out in Asda stores.

The superstore has adopted the US tradition of offering goods at discount prices the day after Thanksgiving, with televisions being sold for £99 and computer tablets as low as £49.

Up and down the UK, shoppers queued outside Asda stores from the early hours of the morning to get their hands on the deals.

However, as soon as the doors opened at the special earlier time of 8am, desperate shoppers fought their way through the crowds, with some getting engulfed in "stampedes" and even arrested.

In Liverpool, one woman was left hospitalised after being punched in the face in the queue at the Asda store.

In Bristol, one man was arrested following an altercation with staff after they told him he was only allowed to purchase one TV at a time.

An Avon and Somerset police spokesperson said: "We were called to Asda to reports (that) a security guard had been assaulted.

"He suffered a cut to the face but declined an ambulance. A 35-year-old man was detained and remains in custody."

A woman in Belfast also suffered a broken wrist after getting caught up in a "stampede" towards the cut-price televisions soon after the doors opened.

One shopper at the Benton branch in North Tyneside described how people were behaving like "savages" in order to get their hands on a bargain.

She told the Mail Online: "It was bedlam, chaos. It was absolutely jam-packed. It wasn't a great queuing system. People started taking the black sheets off themselves, then it was mayhem.

"People grabbed what they could. There was no ticketing system.

"They did have staff at the 32 inch TVs but I didn't see any staff where the tablets and the phones were.

"There were big fights at the tablets and the phones. It was horrific.

"I was ashamed to be English to be honest. People had more than one item. They had two or three TVs or tablets in their trollies.

"There was lots of screaming and shouting. I'm surprised there weren't people on the floor. I found it disgusting. It was horrific."

In a statement Asda, which is owned by US giant Walmart, said: "Our customers have been queuing since 5am to get their hands on our best ever deals and, as stock was limited, we understand that some customers may have been disappointed."

While these sorts of scenes are unusual on the last Friday of November in the UK, on the other side of the pond millions of people fight the crowds every year during Black Friday, which is described as the busiest shopping day of the year.

One man was shot by police as he attempted to shoplift Kohl's department store in Romeoville, Chicago, during the frenzied scenes.

Shoppers are reported to have carried on shopping inside the store even after police had marked the crime scene off.

Videos and fights posted by shoppers in the thousands of Walmart stores across the US have also been on social media.

A New Jersey man was arrested in a Walmart accused of assaulting a police officer after allegedly arguing with a store employee over a TV. Police said there were three fights at the Walmart in the Southern California city of Rialto alone.

All the people involved in the fights were taken into custody.