An Armed Robber Tried To Hold Up A Grocery Store, Little Girl Scared Him Off, Throwing A Loaf Of Bread At Him

A 10-year-old girl stymied a would-be armed robber by throwing a loaf of bread at him, The Evening Standard reports. Unfortunately for police, the suspect is still at large.

Authorities say that just before 10 p.m. on Monday night, the unidentified girl and her father were doing some shopping at Express Supermarket in Worthing, England. At about the same time, a masked man entered the store and began brandishing a knife, demanding that the cashier give him money.

However, the girl and her father were apparently not willing to witness a robbery taking place in front of them that night, and they took action. The dad threw a couple of bottles of squash (which is to say, a sugary, fruit-flavored drink additive) at the man, while the young lass threw a loaf of bread at him.

The perpetrator, perhaps fazed by customers fighting back, began to lose his cool, blocking himself from the blows from the thrown foodstuffs while still trying valiantly to score some ill-gotten cash. Surveillance cameras captured the crook attempting to shield himself, while again trying, and failing, to grab some money from the cash register.

Detective Constable Noel Simmonds, while praising the girl and her father for daring to fight an armed man, albeit with bread and sweet drinks, said that an armed man is still on the loose in the city, and that he needs to be brought to justice.

“There are considerable risks any time a knife is used or brandished, and whilst it is tempting to just view the spectacle of an armed robber fleeing in panic from a young girl, if the suspect is not caught he may try again, and next time someone could be seriously hurt,” he said.

This is not the first time that a young child has fought off an assailant using whatever they had available. As previously reported by The Inquisitr, in North Carolina an 11-year-old boy fought off a would-be home invader with a machete.

In case you were wondering, fighting off an assailant armed with a loaf of bread, or indeed, fighting off an armed assailant at all, is a bad idea.

As Secrets of Survival explains, an armed robber is, 99 times out of 100, far more interested in your money than he is in your life, so he’s not going to try to harm you unless you give him a reason. What’s more, time is of the essence when it comes to an armed robbery, and the crook wants nothing more than to get in and get out as quickly as possible and with as little hassle as possible. Hassling him, by, for example, lobbing bread and drinks at him, may be enough to turn him even more violent.