In the last 15 months there have been 27 incidents ranging from verbal abuse to criminal damage at George Nixon's shop on Priorswell Road in Worksop.

"All of these things make me very sad and upset and I am just about fed up with it now," said 37-year-old Mr Nixon.

"My biggest fear is that the nature of the attacks could get worse, we just don't know what might happen next."

On the day Mr Nixon took over the shop – then known as the Priory Store – it had its window smashed and the owner was subjected to racial abuse.

The store has recently joined the Premier franchise chain and thousands of pounds has been spent on renovating the shop.

"Last Friday we were due to have a special opening day of the new Premier store and on the Thursday evening the finishing touches were put to the new fascia of the shop."

"When I was opening up at about 5.30am on Friday morning I was horrified to find that paint had been sprayed all over the new shop sign."

"Myself and my staff had to spend over three hours cleaning the paint off so that we could go ahead with the opening of the new look shop."

Other incidents over the last 15 months include roof tiles being damaged by objects thrown at it and on one occasion racist graffiti was sprayed on a wall at the back of the shop.

Mr Nixon moved to Britain 12 years ago because he had family here and wanted to try and make a better life for himself.

"For the first 11 years we lived in Wembley and in all that time we never had any problems like we are having now."

He believes that the problem could be down to the fact that Worksop has a very low ethnic minority population and despite the problems he is determined not to give in to the thugs.

"We are in a difficult position – we are always trying to improve things for the customers but things like this keep setting us back."

"I think most local people realise that we are trying to offer them a better service – the shop is now open until 11pm instead of 5pm and people are being very supportive."

"All we want to do is improve things for our customers – some of them are disabled and we deliver their shopping to them free of charge."

Mr Nixon – a devout Catholic – says every time he is the victim of crime he reports it to the police but he doesn't believe they have done enough to help him.

But Chf Insp Matthew McFarlane of Worksop police said that the force had gone to great lengths to tackle the problem of crime at the convenience store.

"We are aware that Mr Nixon has repeatedly been a victim of crime and anti-social behaviour," said Chf Ins McFarlane.

"He is simply trying to run a business, which provides a valuable service to the local community and the beat manager visits Mr Nixon regularly and high visibility patrols have been deployed in the area."

He added that all the incidents have been investigated and wherever possible action has been taken against the offenders.

"Four people have been prosecuted for offences including criminal damage, theft, assault and racially aggravated harassment."

"In some other incidents there has not been sufficient evidence to support a prosecution and we will continue to investigate these."