shoppers received an early present when tills at a supermarket crashed and staff had to guess the prices of their goods.

The tills went out of action at Sainsbury's in West Hove yesterday on one of the busiest days of the year.

Checkout staff had to estimate the amount of shopping in each individual trolley or basket and some people got away with paying less than half what they expected for their weekly shop.

Sainsbury's eventually had to shut the store because of the problem, which was caused by a technical fault and lasted just over an hour.

Audrey Martin, 65, was stocking up on food and drink with her husband Derek when the tills crashed and the couple waited for up to half an hour while workmen tried to repair the fault.

Mrs Martin, of Vale Road,

Portslade, walked out with a nearly-full trolley of Christmas goodies for just £10 but she predicted her load was worth three times as much.

She said: "We were there doing our weekly shop along with hundreds of people. I had not got a trolley so I went out to get one but when I tried to get back in I couldn't because the doors had been closed.

"I was let in because I pointed out that it was not much good that I had the money and he was doing the shopping.

"We then finished our shopping and saw there were massive queues. Everything was having

to be done by hand. Then

the girl at the end of the

counter said she would have

to guess what I had in my

trolley and she charged me £10, which I thought was more than all right.

"Considering I know I had two items in there which came to £12 and I had quite a lot in my trolley,

"I think I did very well and it was a nice present to receive before Christmas. It was absolute chaos in there though.

"The queues were enormous."

Rosie Nixon, 27, of Upper North Street, Brighton, was also stocking up for the festive period when she received a slice of good fortune at the tills.

She had been buying vegetables, Christmas pudding, wines and snacks for her Christmas Day meal when she noticed the long

queues.

But when she got to the checkout she saw that staff were doing guesstimates for people's shopping.

She said: "The woman looked in my trolley, which was only half-full, and basically I paid £10 for what I would have thought would have been more like £30, so I have saved a lot today.

"I do not normally like Christmas food shopping but I think this is fantastic.

"I think they ought to make it a regular thing for all their loyal customers!"

A spokeswoman for Sainsbury's said: "There has been a problem with the tills but they were fixed after an hour.

"We normally guess the amounts in trolleys when this type of thing happens because we cannot keep customers in the store.

"There was a technical fault with the tills and that is why they went out of action for a while."

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