THE manager of the Dartmouth and District Food Bank has resigned amid claims of bullying and abuse she has suffered for trying to help people.

Dawn Shepherd announced on Tuesday she was leaving the food bank operation she first started from her kitchen more than three years ago.

She said she had received emails calling her a 'meddling amateur and a liar'.

She told the annual meeting of the food bank in the Guildhall that she had been shouted at and abused in the street, on the phone and at her home and had 'cruel and incorrect' articles written about her and passed around the town.

'For what?' she asked. 'Being a bit too kind, too tolerant, wanting to help people?

'I want to leave because of the bullying that goes on in this town if you put your head up and try to help.

'The majority of this town are good, kind people who want to help, be involved. There's also a minority of people who just want to tear it all down.

'I've asked them what their agenda is and I don't think they even know, so how could I? I think they just don't like anything that they don't control.

'I've been told to ignore them, they'll go away, but so far they've just got louder.

'Someone told me it's like stones in a can, the fewer in there the louder it sounds. I think it's naive of us to think it makes no difference what they say.'

Ms Shepherd said the food bank had lost volunteers because they were worried about 'this behaviour' and others who would only help if no one knew they were involved.

For more on this story, see this week's Dartmouth Chronicle