6:00pm Thursday 14th June 2012
By Laura Smith
A SHOP owner has spoken of the horrifying moment she had a gun pointed in her face.
Rabeen Allan was confronted by a gunman at Mace Ashingdon Stores, in Ashingdon Road, Ashingdon, when she disturbed a robbery.
Yesterday, we reported the robbers burst in and attacked a 26-year-old employee behind the counter.
They demanded the key to the till, and then knocked him to the ground.
He was then subjected to a torrent of punches and kicks.
Mrs Allan was in the upstairs flat at the time and heard the commotion. She ventured down and opened an internal door to the shop to investigate.
It was then that one of the robbers turned to her, and raised a pistol towards her face.
Mother-of-two Mrs Allan, 42, said: “I saw this man pointing a gun at me.
“He didn’t say a word.
“I quickly slammed the door shut and ran back upstairs to call the police.
“I was very scared and upset, and my heart was beating so hard.”
Police arrived at about 3pm on Tuesday, just after the crooks had fled in the direction of Rochford.
Mrs Allan, who has an 11-year-old daughter and 13-year-old son, said: “I struggled to sleep that night because I was so scared, and so did my daughter.”
The member of staff, who was attacked and does not want to be named, was left with a deep cut behind one ear and a huge bruise behind the other.
He had gone back to his home in Newham that night, where he was checked over at a local hospital.
The crooks had taken about £500 from the till and about £400 worth of cigarettes.
Mrs Allan’s husband, Anthony, 43, said he had never known anything like it in the nine years his family had run the shop.
He said: “It’s the first time something like this has happened.
“We’re open all the time and we’ve got good customers.
“We’ve had a lot of people asking how we are.”
The suspects were two slim white men, possibly with ginger hair. They were wearing hoodies.
Anyone with information can call Southend police on 101.
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