Henry the Hoover wards off robber

A shop assistant has told how she managed to ward off a knife-wielding robber armed with nothing more than a Henry the Hoover. Pat Convery, 55, was vacuuming the aisles at the shop where she works when the masked raider burst in to the North East Convenience Store, in Kenton, Newcastle, and began threatening her colleague Toni Williamson, 24, with a kitchen knife.

"He was threatening my supervisor with a knife, so I gave him a few good whacks with the vacuum," she said. "It was just instinct I didn't even think about what I was doing. I just gave him a good clout.



"It all happened so quickly. He just came in and he had a mask on covering his face. He shouted: "give us the boxes" "He was threatening her with a knife and I just told him to get out."

The robber pushed Miss Williamson, 24, from Kenton, to the floor before fleeing with a large amount of cash, leaving her unhurt but shaken.