Black Friday mayhem

The Black Friday phenomenon has spread to the UK in recent years after becoming a big hit in the U.S., where traditionally big sales occur on the first Friday after the Thanksgiving holiday.

Today is expected to be the UK's biggest day of spending this year, with the majority of stores – both online and in the high street – heavily discounting an array of goods.

Major fashion chains such as Topshop, Urban Outfitters, John Lewis, Marks & Spencer, House of Fraser and Debenhams are promising deals of between 50 and 70 per cent off, while supermarket giants including Asda, Tesco and Sainsbury's will battle it out with cut-price technological goods, toys and home furnishings. 

There were scenes of chaos in several supermarkets up and down the country in the early hours of this morning, after shoppers queued outside for several hours before descending on the stores when they opened just after midnight.

Several large Tesco stores across Britain opened at one minute past midnight to catch early bird shoppers, while Sainsbury's started its sale at 1am in its 24-hour stores.

In one Tesco store in Glasgow, shoppers could be seen physically pushing each other out of the way and shouting at one another as they frantically tried to get their hands on slashed-price technology goods. 

There were reports that the Tesco Extra store was forced to temporarily close due to the chaos.

Craig Lin wrote on Twitter: 'If your (sic) going to Tesco Silverburn, don't bother. Police have shut it down due to fighting over sales.'