A VICAR has expressed her “complete disgust” at parents who swore at church volunteers after they were unable to book a free visit to see Santa.

Rev Viv Masters, of St James, Breightmet, described how some callers had been abusive to staff who told them the free opportunity to visit Santa in his grotto and receive gifts from a sleigh was booked up.

Volunteers at the church on Roscow Avenue have been working tirelessly throughout the year and in recent weeks to collect and deliver food and presents with one parishoner, Lee Morley, building a specially designed sledge that allows children to meet Santa from a safe distance.

Rev Masters, said: “On the whole most people have been really good and really appreciative. Sadly four different people have phoned up to book and when they couldn’t they got abusive. I wanted to let people know that it wasn’t going to happen in the future unless this stopped.”

In recent weeks the church has distributed over 200 toys to children as well as offering the chance to meet Santa.

“What I need people to know is that I have to care for my staff,” said Rev Masters. “It has been hard work for everyone at the church. This year we have spent the whole year giving food out and we did a frozen food distribution for families when they did not get the school meal vouchers.”

Rev Masters said she feels most people appreciate the work the church has done during lockdown.

She said: “The contacts we have made and the support we have received has been amazing. The visits to Santa’s grotto came because we wanted to find a way to give gifts to children while complying with social distancing rules.

“We put feelers out and one of our parishioners made us a sleigh which is brilliant as it allows children to pull it towards them with a big rope and then an elf pulls it back and puts the presents on for the next group making sure to sanitize between each one.”

Given the hard work the church and volunteers have gone to Rev Masters said she hoped people would refrain from the kind of abuse they have experienced.

She wrote on Facebook: “You may understand my complete disgust by the abuse my staff are experiencing from people phoning for a place to visit Santa. When told we are fully booked, they are then swearing down the phone saying we should be able to fit them in. Sadly, I will be thinking very seriously whether we can provide this sort of service next year as I cannot let my staff or volunteers be abused in this way.”

She added: “The reason I put it on Facebook was because I wanted people to realise it wasn’t on.

“Because we’d made so many good contacts throughout the pandemic I knew that if I said something people would rally around and say ‘You need to stop that’. I’m not angry because I don’t get really angry. I’m sad more than anything and I wanted to get across that you cannot treat my staff like that.”