Since the PCA was released, and a brief outline of D's account was reported it's made me think a lot about a situation I was in several years ago, at work. At the time I was working part time in mini convenience type store, owned by a well known company (begins with "Co"). I was a supervisor on some shifts, but on this one I was working with a different supervisor and a colleague who was a general shop worker.
It was near closing, around 9.30pm, (we closed at ten) and I was tidying up some shelves facing the till, where my colleague was behind the till sorting out paperwork. My back was to the till, and I was bent down sorting some lower shelves when I heard my collegue (I'll call him G)say my name, in an odd tone of voice. When I stood up I was race to face with a male, wearing a scarf covering his face, a hat, all dressed in black. He grabbed my shoulder and upon focusing I realised he was holding a large machete. He told me to open the till, and my immediate reaction was anger, in my head I was thinking how dare he come into our store and do this (we were a tight knit team and had worked there for years) so I said no, I can't, he repeated "open the till" in a more agitated tone of voice and once again I said no, we didn't have the keys, you're not getting any money, I was livid. He saw G move to hit the panic button and said if you do that she's dead.
He then said "I'm going to count to three, and if you don't open the till I'm going to kill you". I looked at my colleague, he began counting, "one..." I'm my head I was thinking what the fuck do I do, "two..." There was a customer around 10 feet from us who had frozen in shock and dropped her basket, so I broke free from his grip, shouted to G to open the till, and grabbed the customer and ran through the back into the office and screamed for my other college who was down in the warehouse, I then locked the door and hit the panic button.
I called 999 and watched on the CCTV him taking the money from the till, cigarettes and bottles of alcohol. I tried to calm down the customer, who was in absolute shock and, made sure my other colleague got into the office safely, and then made sure G was safe. I don't remember much after that, obviously the police arriving, and the manager and assistant manager.
Scary thing was the guys brother lived around the corner from me, I found out afterwards. And he would come into the store after this and stare at me over the counter. He was a scary looking guy too.
I kept an eye on the court case, apparently he had been in jail 18 years out of the prior 20. He had only been out three weeks when he robbed us and an off licence on the same night, just before us. He was give five years, and had to complete the rest of the sentence he was out on parol for, another four years. So 9 I'm total. The judge said there was a good chance he would never be released from prison as he was a danger to the public and had indicated re wanted to kill someone. He had previous for armed robber, assaults, stabbings. He was put on a lifetime supervision order.
Looking back I realise I was so incredibly stupid to argue with him, I know we were always told if someone robbed us just to give them what they wanted. But I don't know what made me argue with him, it wasn't my money, but I was so angry that he would do that to OUR store, and frighten my colleague, and the customer.
I know now he could have quite easily killed me. I just wanted to share my experience as I til you are in a Life threatening situation you never know how you will react. I reacted in the worst way possible. I was worried he was going to go behind the counter and hurt D.
Sorry for the long post but this has been on my mind, and I'm appalled at the comments (not on here) towards that poor girl who came face to face with a psychopath.
It’s all so terribly sad, but something about him being a triplet…
hate tiktok sometimes
its awful
