Protestors targeted a Starbucks coffee shop in Stratford on Saturday to make a stand about tax avoidance.

Members of campaign group UK Uncut and the Socialist Workers Party staged a protest in the Starbucks franchise on the Broadway on Saturday to alert customers to how much tax the multi-billion pound corporation pays.

Local protestor Simon Shaw claims the group “effectively closed” the store for around an hour and a half as members of the public responded to their chants of “We won’t fill your tills until you pay your bills”.

The Stratford group were joined by hundreds around the country after Starbucks bosses faced a House of Commons Committee last week following revelations the coffee franchise has paid �8.6m in corporation tax in 14 years and nothing in the last three years despite UK sales of nearly �400m in 2011.

Starbucks have pledged to pay the exchequer arounnd �10m in corporation tax over each of the next two years but UK Uncut chose not to call off the planned action.