Shop assistant wards off knife-wielding robber with vacuum cleaner!

London, Dec 15 (ANI): A shop assistant managed to ward off knife-wielding robber with nothing more than a vacuum cleaner.

Pat Convery, 55, was vacuuming the aisles at her North East Convenience Store in Kenton, Newcastle, when a masked robber entered her shop 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," the Telegraph quoted Convery as saying.

"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," she added.

The robber fled with a large amount of cash, leaving Williamson unhurt but shaken.

The cops are appealing for witnesses to the robbery to come forward and officers are studying CCTV images from the shop.

"Police received reports of a young man carrying a knife entering the North East Convenience Store," said a spokesman for Northumbria Police.

"He pushed a member of staff who was emptying a cash machine, before leaving the store with a substantial quantity of cash from the cash machine. Nobody was hurt and inquiries are ongoing," he added. (ANI)