A ‘GOOD Samaritan’ stepped in to stop a customer abusing a member of staff at a petrol station — and was attacked and spat at in the face.

The incident was at 7pm on Wednesday at the Shell UK garage, Bolton Road, Darwen, when a man went to pay for fuel and got into a ‘dispute’ with an employee.

Another customer – a 33-year-old local man – tried to calm the situation, but he was assaulted and verbally abused.

A witness, who did not want to be named, said: “I could see a lot of commotion inside the petrol station.

“There was a queue of people waiting to pay, and all of a sudden a man with a baseball cap pushed another man and punched him.

“There was a lot of shouting and some of the customers came back out of the shop and went to their cars to wait for it to calm down.

“The cashier was on the phone to the police when the man walked out of the petrol station and was still shouting and he started giving two young girls with a pram abuse before walking across the street to a silver car.

“It was frightening.

“When I went in the shop the customers said he had threatened to stab the other man and had punched and spat at him.

“They said it was really scary.”

The 63-year-old employee who was shouted at said: “He asked to buy wine, but I told him we don’t sell alcohol.

“He started swearing at me and then the customer got involved.”

Sergeant Tim McDermott confirmed that police had received a report of the ‘very unpleasant incident’ and said he was ‘confident’ the person responsible would be traced.

He said: “The customer who intervened was subjected to abuse and spat at – that constitutes an assault.

“We have several active lines of inquiry, including the man’s vehicle registration number.

"He’s from outside Lancashire, so we may need co-operation from other forces.”

Anyone with information should call 0845 1 253545.