PROTESTERS forced a Vodafone store to temporarily close after staging a sit-down demonstration inside.

Campaigners blockaded stores across the country over claims the firm had avoided tax to the tune of £6 billion.

Vodafone last night dismissed the claim and said it had paid its taxes.

The shop in Cornmarket Street, Oxford, was shut for about two hours. Twenty demonstrators were removed by police, with one 21-year-old student taken away in handcuffs. He was not charged with any offence.

He said: “We told the police we were doing a legitimate protest against tax avoidance and we weren’t prepared to leave. It’s disgraceful that this is what happens when people try to protest peacefully.”

The protest happened after the magazine Private Eye reported Vodafone avoided tax in Britain when it bought the German engineering company Mannesmann by routing money through a subsidiary in Luxembourg – where tax is less than one per cent.

A Vodafone spokesman said: “We temporarily closed some of them and diverted customers to other locations, so they were not inconvenienced.

“We pay our taxes in the UK and all of the other countries in which we operate. Reports suggesting that we have an outstanding tax bill for £6bn are incorrect.”

An HM Revenue & Customs spokesman said: “There’s no question of Vodafone having a tax liability of £6bn. That number is an urban myth.”

The demonstration, organised over Twitter and Facebook, coincided with others around the UK, including in London, Glasgow and Manchester.

Vodafone in the Westgate was unaffected.