A TERRIFIED newsagent has told how he was threatened by a masked duo wielding knives.

Shah Rasaratnam is calling for more police patrols to watch over small businesses that stay open in the early evening after the raid at Rogers Newsagents in High Street, Rhosymedre.

The robbers struck at 7.45pm last Thursday (November 28) ripping out both counter tills with nearly £700 cash in them before making off in a getaway car which was waiting in a nearby street to pick them up.

Mr Rasaratnam, 42, says it is the second time his newsagents has been targeted in the last year. On the previous occasion the culprits were caught and handed down sentences from the courts.

“There is no police around in the early evening in villages like this and it is dark so you do feel at risk. After this robbery I am closing early now and when I am open and it has gone dark I make sure I am always in the store room as I have CCTV in there,” said the newsagent, who says the robbers jumped into his shop after he had brought his sign boards in for the night.

“They both had knives and they thrust them at me. They were swearing a lot and I ran behind the counter, but they grabbed the two tills and pulled everything out, the computer hardware and electrical equipment.

“I ran outside and saw them making off turning down Park Road. A taxi driver said he saw two men carrying the tills and then a car picked them up.”

Mr Rasaratnam’s wife, who was upstairs caring for the couple’s baby, triggered the shop alarm when she saw the raid on the CCTV.

The newsagent says one of the tills had £470 cash while there was more than £200 in the other. But the cost of replacing the equipment will run to around £3,000.

He says one of the robbers was tall and the other short and they both spoke with local accents.

It is the second armed robbery in the space of five days at Wrexham shops.

On November 24 the Premier shop in Norman Road in Hightown was targeted with a till containing between £400 and £500 of cash taken.

North Wales Police’s community safety east team has released a CCTV image of the first incident.