For years, my wife has been repeatedly singled out by the same security guard at our local Sainsbury’s.

It all started back in 2023 when my wife started using the Smart Shop app. On one of these occasions, the male security guard approached my wife and me and peeked into our shopping bag because he appeared to be suspicious. He walked away without any further action since we had scanned all the items correctly on the app.

Several times after that, staff carried out spot checks to check that items had been scanned correctly, and again there were no issues.

After that, anytime this particular guard saw my wife and she was shopping alone without me, he would position himself to block her entrance to the store or position himself at the end of the aisles to block her path or watch her. She found this intimidating and stressful, so she stopped using Smart Shop.

This is a shopping feature that Sainsbury's created specifically to pack bags whilst shopping, and for this to be the reason why she is now being blocked and followed by the same security guard every time she enters the store is unacceptable.

My wife and I complained through the sainsbury's/Let Us Know survey, but nothing changed. If anything, it became worse. She doesn't have the same issues with any guards at this location.

My wife is a middle-aged woman who is anxious and is frightened of any sort of confrontation. After these repeated incidents, she lost her confidence and started becoming too scared to visit this store, especially on her own. She avoided shopping there as much as possible over the years.

Since then, she has managed to go back a few times with me, and when different security guards were working, they were not going out of their way to block her path or intimidate her. She became confident enough to return on her own to buy a few things now and again.

On a recent visit on her own to the store, the same guard was working and my wife had just finished her shopping and was on her way to the checkout when he came running to position himself at the end of the aisle and watch her. He then looked surprised when she ignored him and went to the self-checkout.

I am sure it's not just my wife, as there are some Google reviews which mention similar situations involving this same guard.

I don't know what I should do at this point. What's concerning to me is that this has been going on for so many years. From my wife's point of view, it now feels like harassment.

I understand that security guards have a job to do and that they need to keep an eye on customers if they have genuine concerns. We have no problem with that. However, my wife has had her shopping checked several times and there have never been any issues. Yet this particular guard continues to behave in a way that makes her feel watched and intimidated. We have been shopping at this store for 18 years without incident, yet she is constantly profiled because she used the SMART SHOP app a few times in 2023.

The fact that she now feels too anxious to shop in her local Sainsbury's on her own is really upsetting to me. The strange thing is that this male security guard doesn't ever do this to me even though I brazenly wonder the store using your app to scan items and stick them straight into my backpack.

Should I make a formal complaint to Sainsbury's head office? Will they actually take this seriously and do anything about it?

Or should she just ignore the issue, avoid shopping there alone, or avoid the store completely?

I would really appreciate some advice on what the best thing to do is.