THE manager of the Woolstores Shopping Centre says a security guard’s claim he found a body in the toilets (Herald, July 12, 2014) was a fabrication.

Barbara Morel told the Herald that in 30 years of managing shopping centres she’d only ever heard of one person dying in a toilet, and it wasn’t at the Woolstores.

Ms Morel said that even before the guard’s claim had been published in the Herald she’d asked that he be “removed” from the centre. She’s since given his company the flick as well.

She says despite traders’ concerns in the story about theft from their stores, things in the centre had been improving and she praised the efforts of police. She believes some shop owners were “exaggerating” losses.

by STEVE GRANT