Two masked men who wielded weapons as they robbed a terrified Workington convenience store worker have been jailed.
Mark Huddart, 29, was carrying an axe and 34-year-old Brian Holliday was carrying a crowbar which they raised while one demanded the key to a safe after entering McColl’s on Harrington Road just before 8am on November 4 last year.
The stunned shop worker was accused of lying when he said he had no key, and desperately tried to open the till as Holliday came around the counter and began rifling through cigarettes and tobacco.
Holliday was heard uttering words to the effect of “I will put something in your skull”.
When the till was opened, cash was stuffed into a carrier bag before the face mask-wearing robbers fled after a customer came into the shop.
The worker was able to press a panic alarm and lock the door as police were alerted and other members of the public tried to see to see where the robbers had gone.
A woman who had been in the back of the store saw her colleague looking “shaken up” with “tears in his eyes”, physically shaking and struggling to speak, Carlisle Crown Court was told today.
He had been working when the shop was raided on an earlier occasion, had switched from night to morning shifts and knew this was the third in a series of robberies in a month.
In an impact statement, he described how the incident had changed him, causing him to feel constantly on edge.
“I didn’t know what he was doing behind my back while I was emptying the till and I was just too terrified to even look,” he stated.
“I can only hope that as time goes on I will heal and go back to being the carefree happy worker that I once was.”
Huddart, of no fixed address, and Holliday, of Harrington Road, Workington, were arrested separately after the raid, the latter in possession of an unopened tobacco punch and £90 cash in notes.
Both later admitted robbery and were jailed for 45 months and 49 months, respectively, by Judge Nicholas Barker.
“This is undoubtedly a very serious act of robbery,” said Judge Barker. “Shops of this sort and the shop workers that work within them are vulnerable to this form of attack.
“And you, in my judgement, knew that and so targeted this as a shop where you could effect a robbery of this sort.”
