Shopkeeper threatened with tree branch fought back with fruit knife

A grandfather brandished a fruit knife to ward off two thieves in the fourth robbery at his convenience store in Cabramatta, Sydney, Australia. Two men, one armed with a tree branch, entered the shop shortly after 7.30pm on Saturday night.



They demanded cash from Allan To, who is originally from Vietnam, waving the branch in his face. “I scared they’d hit me [with] the long stick,” Mr To said. “I came in Australia in 1990. I stay here in the shop twenty years already.”

Mr To grabbed a fruit knife and demanded the men leave, but not before they took $800 and his mobile phone.“I turn around. I take the knife, they see the knife and they ran,” he said. Inspector Rob Adam from NSW Police said the opportunistic robbery was “desperate”.



“I imagine they must have been quite desperate to use a tree branch,” he said. “I’ve reviewed the footage, it’s only a skinny branch but it could cause some serious injury to the victims.” No arrests have yet been made. The men are described as being of Pacific Islander/Maori appearance and are around 183cm tall. Both men had a solid build, and were wearing black hooded jumpers.

With news video.