{"id":15418,"date":"2016-06-30T11:51:15","date_gmt":"2016-06-30T10:51:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/?p=15418"},"modified":"2016-06-30T11:53:03","modified_gmt":"2016-06-30T10:53:03","slug":"hero-shopkeeper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/2016\/06\/30\/hero-shopkeeper\/","title":{"rendered":"Hero Shopkeeper"},"content":{"rendered":"

37-year-old Ben Blackmore burst into a shop demanding cash and cigarettes whilst waving a ten-inch blade at the shopkeeper.<\/p>\n

The court was told that he threatened a frightened 62-year-old Hasumati Patel, who immediately notified her husband 65-year-old Natvar Patel who was in a back room of the shop.<\/p>\n

Dad of two, Mr Patel picked up a set of aluminium stepladders and hit Blackmore over the head as he sprung forward with the knife.<\/p>\n

Blackmore fled Parkfield Stores, in Wolverhampton with a pack of cigarettes.<\/p>\n

Extraordinarily, Mr Patel raced after Blackmore, following him outside the shop. He then picked up a friend in his car before finding the thief at a nearby bus stop.<\/p>\n

The pair rang 999 and the police reached the scene within minutes. They arrested Blackmore who was still in possession of the knife and stolen cigarettes.<\/p>\n

Blackmore pleaded guilty to robbery and was jailed for two years and eight months at Birmingham Crown Court.<\/p>\n

Grandad-of-two Mr Patel, who has run the shop with his wife for 35 years, said: “I was in the back and I went rushing out when I heard the security buzzer.<\/p>\n

“I could see the man standing with the knife in his hand and I shouted: ‘What the f*** do you want?’<\/p>\n

“He wanted money so I said: ‘Okay I will go and get you the money’.<\/p>\n

“I went out the back and picked up the ladders from the room behind the shop and raced at him with them.<\/p>\n

\"Natvar<\/a>
Natvar Patel with his set of step ladders<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

“I was pushing him and trying to get the knife and he kept backing off.<\/p>\n

“He turned towards the door and I whacked him over the back of the head and he ran off.<\/p>\n

“Then I chased him in my car and we found him about ten minutes’ walk away at the bus stop.<\/p>\n

“We were on the phone to the police and they turned up and arrested him.<\/p>\n

“He only had a pack of cigarettes from us so he has paid a high price for them.<\/p>\n

“I have no regrets, I would do it again to protect my shop.”<\/p>\n

His wife Mrs Patel said she was unaccompanied behind the till when the robber entered the shop and requested a pack of cigarettes.<\/p>\n

She added: “He looked just like a normal customer and he asked for a pack of ten cigarettes.<\/p>\n

“I asked for the \u00a33.90 and he took out the knife from his pocket. He told me to open the till and said he wanted money.<\/p>\n

“I managed to press the buzzer to call for help and my husband came out quickly from the back.<\/p>\n

“He was pushing the man with the ladders and managed to get him to run outside.<\/p>\n

“It was all over in 45 seconds but I was so scared. My husband is a hero.<\/p>\n

“I told him not to do it next time but he said why should we give him the money. We are glad he has been sent to jail.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

37-year-old Ben Blackmore burst into a shop demanding cash and cigarettes whilst waving a ten-inch blade at the shopkeeper. The court was told that he threatened a frightened 62-year-old Hasumati Patel, who immediately notified her husband 65-year-old Natvar Patel who was in a back room of the shop. Dad of two, Mr Patel picked up […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":15419,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37,3,112],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","category-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15418"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15418\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}