Sad day as BHS bows out of high street

Bargain hunters last to leave final stores

The doors have finally closed on one of the staples of the British high street, as BHS stores served customers for the final time.

The last bargain hunters could be seen emerging from the department store clutching heavily discounted items as the last of the 150 BHS branches closed for good, 88 years after the business was introduced across the country.

In Walthamstow, north London, shoppers rummaged through boxes of heavily discounted goods.

Paul Campbell, who lives locally, left the store shortly after 4pm with a trolley full of DVDs. He said: “I’ve paid a pound for this lot. I reckon it’s about 200 or so DVDs, if they are all there in the right cases. At the end of the day, I’ve paid a pound for all this. It’s not really much of a risk.”

Veedoo Clash, from Tottenham, said shewassad to see BHS leave the high street, having shopped at the branch for 28 years.

She said: “I have always liked BHS for their quality and good-fitting clothes, so it is a sad day.”

In York, the doors of the store were locked to customers before its official 4pm closing time.

Inside, staff couldbeseen hugging one another on the shopfloor, which had been stripped of all stock, fixtures and fittings.

A number of shoppers tried unsuccessfully to open the locked doors.

One woman said: “I needed some new clothes so I thought I would come down here today but it is closed. I always shop at BHSso it is really sad to see it close down.”

Administrators Duff & Phelps and FRP Advisory have overseen scores of closures over recent weeks, including BHS’s flagship Oxford Street store.

The store’s collapse in April has affected 11,000 jobs, 22,000 pensions, sparked a lengthy parliamentary inquiry and left its high-profile former owners potentially facing a criminal investigation.

Retail billionaire Sir Philip Green has been branded the “unacceptable face of capitalism” by furious MPs.

Sir Philip owned BHS for 15 years before selling it to serial bankrupt Dominic Chappell for £1 in 2015.

Sir Philip has come under fire for taking more than £400million in dividends from the chain, leaving it with a £571million pension deficit.

Veteran Labour MP Frank Field asked the Serious Fraud Office to launch a formal investigation. The family of Greville Janner wants the public inquiry into child abuse to delay its investigation into the late Labour peer.

Lord Janner, 87, who died in December, is alleged to have abused youngsters for over 30 years, dating back to the 1950s, with offending said to have taken place at children’s homes and hotels.

The al l e g a t i o n s against him are due to be examined at hearings of the public inquiry next March.

But his son has said that, as civil proceedings by some of his alleged victims have started, the claims s h o u l d go through the courts – where his father’s accusers can be cross-examined – before they feature in the inquiry.

Daniel JannerQCtold the BBC he had prepared a submission for the Home Affairs Select

“This process discredits the work of the inquiry”

Committee which is due to questionHomeSecretary Amber Rudd next month.

He said: “We very much hope that the committee will question why the inquiry is planning to make findings of fact inrelation tomy late father when he is dead, when he cannot answer back, when he has never been convicted ofany offence and is entirely innocent.

“Moreover we are denied the right to crossexamine what we know to be false allegations and we say this process actually discredits the important work of the inquiry.

“Civil proceedings are in train and it is in those civil proceedings thatwe do get the right to crossexamine, when those all e g a t i o n s can be tested.”

He said he and his two sisters intended to use their inheritance to clear the family name.

CLOSING DOWN SALE: Bargain hunters emerge from BHS as the last of its 150 shops closed its doors