GOODWILL to all men was somewhat thin on the ground when Santa Claus arrived back after a hard day delivering presents - to find a parking ticket slapped on his car.

And as tempers frayed, the seasonal stand-off ended with Father Christmas being thrown out of the supermarket car park and banned from the store.

After a morning bringing festive cheer to the streets of Darlington with the group's annual Christmas collection, Martin Corney, chairman of Bondgate Round Table, returned to his vehicle in the Safeway car park to discover he had been given a ticket.

After spending several hours entertaining shoppers on his reindeer and sleigh, he found that he had exceeded the two-hour limit for a stay in the Victoria Road store's car park.

A stunned Mr Corney asked for an explanation from the manager but was eventually asked to leave after allegedly being "verbally abusive". In a letter to Safeway chiefs, he hit out at the company, saying he had expected more sympathy because of his charitable work throughout the morning of December 21.

Of his dispute with the manager, he said: "The meeting culminated in him banning me from the store - I assume by this he also means all Safeway stores.

"I am unsure if he has also banned my wife as well, or if his ban is a general one which applies to all of Darlington Round Table, or even all members of Round Table throughout the country."

A Safeway spokeswoman said: "In this case the gentleman had exceeded the time limit in the car park over the Christmas period.

"If he had approached us beforehand with the details of any charity work he was carrying out, we may have come to an agreement.

"The gentleman was then verbally abusive and asked to leave the store in order to cause minimum disruption to our customers."