Off-licence manager is robbed for the fourth time in ten years

AN off-sales boss robbed at knifepoint has told how it was the fourth time he has been held up in the last ten years.

• The Winehouse store, above, and Sandher and Sons Newsagents, below, were both robbed on Monday

Store manager Allan Wilson, 27, was manning the Winehouse shop on Slateford Road last Monday at 12.50pm when a knife-wielding thug burst in threatening to stab him and demanding cash from the safe.

At 9.25am that morning, Sandher and Sons Newsagents in nearby Dundee Street was targeted by an unarmed man who intimidated a female shopworker before escaping with just 10.

Mr Wilson said he feared he was going to be stabbed but held his nerve until the robber made off with just a three- figure sum.

"I was on my own in the shop when this guy came in with a hat and a hood on, clearly dressed for the winter," he said.

"He already had the knife in his hand but it was hidden. He then came up (to the counter] brandishing the weapon and shouting all the swear words of the day like he was going to do me over. He wanted money from the safe but we don't have one so I gave him the small change that we use as the float in the till.

"He was very threatening and aggressive but wasn't here long. It was just a matter of minutes before he was off."

The experienced off-licence worker, who has managed the Winehouse since it opened four months ago, said he felt at risk of being seriously injured.

He said: "It was a very scary moment. At one point I thought he was going to go for me because you could almost see it in his face.

"I believed at the time I was going to come to some harm. I did think he was going to stab me."

He added: "This is the fourth time I have been held up. It's happened once in Glasgow when I was working there and three times in Edinburgh. It's just bad luck I suppose."

CCTV within the Slateford Road shop is thought to have captured images of the camouflaged robber and the police are probing the incident.

He is described as a white male, 5ft 10ins and was wearing a grey hooded top, a grey woollen hat, black scarf, blue jeans, black trainers and white or grey mitten-type gloves.

Police are also on the trail of a white man aged between 20 and 25 years, 5ft 7ins tall, wearing a black hat, scarf and a cream tracksuit in connection with the Dundee Street robbery.

News of the incidents comes after the Evening News told yesterday of a terrifying robbery in Leith involving two masked men with kitchen knives.

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