Wigan shop worker held at gunpoint shares her terrifying robbery ordeal

Emma Wilson and a customer were forced to their knees after masked and black-clad raiders burst into the convenience store she was staffing.

One was armed with a handgun which was pointed at the 37-year-old staff member, another of the assailants was armed with a hatchet and threatened the customer while a third, who may also have been armed, attacked the till, somehow ripping it from its moorings.

The trio then fled with the till - containing perhaps only £50 - and jumped into a waiting silver Ford car with two other gang members inside and it drove off at speed.

The vehicle was later found burnt out in Borsdane Wood.

The raid happened at the Premier Shop on Sandy Lane, Hindley, at 7.30pm on Sunday December 22 and this is the first time Emma has spoken publicly about her ordeal.

She says that it left her badly shaken, requiring help from Wigan’s Crisis team - whom she has nothing but praise for - and being put first on a course of tranquillisers and, more recently anti-depressants.

Emma has, however, bravely returned to work although she says she is much nervier than she used to be, especially in the evenings.

She said: “I was absolutely terrified. With that gun pointed in may face from an arm’s length away, I really did fear that I was going to die.

“There are usually two of us in the shop but the lad I was down to do the shift with wasn’t able to come in that day so I was on my own. There was one customer in the shop - a man who I think has learning difficulties - when there was a bang and the door burst open. At first I thought it was drunks - it was just before Christmas after all - and I looked round the corner to the door to see who it was only to come face to face with a pistol.

“Even then I thought it was a prank. There are a few customers who came in and jokingly shout ‘give us all your money - this is a stick-up’ or something like that. But it took a second for me to register that this was serious and for real.

“They shouted at me and the customer to get down on the floor. I was on my knees and frozen in fear.

“Somehow one of them wrenched the till off the counter, even though it was bolted down, and they ran out of the shop with it.

“My immediate feeling afterwards was guilt. I kept apologising to the owner, saying that I should’ve done something to stop them but he said it was right that I didn’t intervene.

“They can’t have got away with much money though. We try to keep the till as empty as possible at the best of times and it was a Sunday evening too. They would have been lucky to have taken £50 - which is a tenner for each of them.

“It took hours to give statements and speak to CID. The police told me that the same people might have been responsible for two more similar robberies - one of them on Atherton Road in Hindley.”

Anyone with information about the robbery is asked to ring police on 101 or Crimestoppers on 0800 555111.