The founder of the Jedi religion inspired by the Star Wars films was thrown out of a Tesco supermarket for wearing his distinctive brown hood.

Daniel Jones, 23, who has 500,000 followers worldwide, was told the hood flouted store rules and was ordered to remove it or leave the supermarket.

As a result Jones, who also goes by the Jedi name Morda Hehol, claims he has been ‘victimised over his beliefs’ and left ‘emotionally humiliated’ by the supermarket in Bangor, North Wales.

But Tesco hit back in the spirit of the epic space saga and claimed that the three most well known Jedi Knights in the Star Wars movies – Yoda, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Luke Skywalker – all appeared in public without their hoods.

Eight police officers serving with Scotland’s largest force listed their official religion as Jedi in voluntary diversity forms, it has emerged.

One of the officers commented, “We do see ourselves as the good guys fighting crime, but it’s hardly in the same league as Luke Skywalker battling Darth Vader is it?

In the 2001 United Kingdom census, 390,000 — 0.7 percent of the population — listed Jedi as their religion.

Two Star Wars-loving brothers planning a Jedi church hope it will be much nearer than a galaxy far, far away.

Two self-styled Jedi Knights are petitioning the UN to recognize Jedi as a religion.

Did you know in the latest census in Great Britain, 390,000 people reported their religion as "Jedi." Officials are left to question the motives of the respondents who successfully skewed the census. The "Jedi Religion" now ranks 4th overall behind Christians, Muslims, and Hindus and actually ahead of Jews and Atheists in Great Britain.

The Winnipeg Sun (Canada), May 14, 2003

AP, Aug. 27, 2002