This is the terrifying moment a shopkeeper was brutally battered over the head with a telescopic BATON in revenge for trying to detain a robber.
Brave Deb Kemp, 43, chased after three yobs after they robbed £1,000 cash and hundreds of cigarettes from her newsagents at 6.50pm last Thursday.
Two of the raiders escaped and a shop assistant grabbed the third while Deb tried to lock the door from the inside.
But before she reached the door the thug’s pals barged back into the shop wielding 21in long metal police-style batons.
One of the thugs helped his friend escape while the other man shoved Deb behind the counter and launched a savage attack on her as she desperately tried to scramble to safety.
The three men finally fled leaving Deb sobbing on the floor of the wine and beer aisle.
Deb suffered a four-inch gash in her head and needed 12 stitches but she was back at work the next morning.
She said: ”I just thought I needed to stop them. I worked long and too hard for my money.
”I am quite hardy. I am not going to be beaten by this scum. I work too hard, everybody who works here works hard.
”These people must be stopped. This could have been fatal.
”If they had hit either one of us in the wrong place we could have been killed.”
The shocking images were captured on CCTV which was installed at the shop after a spate of thefts over the last 12 months.
Deb, who runs Kemp Stores in Eastern Green, Coventry, West Mids., said she ”would not be beaten” by the thieves.
She added: ”I’m just shocked really.
”There was no need for them to hit us, the threat would have been enough I suppose.
”But, for him to come round the till and hit me when he could have gone out the door, he was intent on hitting me, he wasn’t going to go.
”I don’t want to be beaten by them, they’re not going to beat me.
”They don’t scare me. I’m not going to have them scare me.
”I’m still angry. Really, really angry.
”Why don’t these people go out and get a job rather than think they can just help themselves?”
Detective Constable Simon Tate, from West Midlands Police, described the robbery as ”a violent, nasty robbery”.
He said: ”This was a violent, nasty robbery in which shop workers have been assaulted trying to protect their property.
”Inquiries are on-going and forensic specialists have managed to recover evidence from the scene that hopefully will identify the offenders.”
The men, one black and two white, were aged between 20 and 23 and wore scarves across their faces.
