AN axe-wielding thief stole a till full of money in broad daylight from a Cirencester shop.

CCTV footage shows a man in a hoodie and blue jeans, his face covered by the hood, sunglasses and a white dust mask, entering Chesterton Stores on Wednesday (September 20) evening and wielding a small axe.

He entered the store at around 6.27pm before leaving in under a minute, running off down the street with his loot.

Once inside the shop on Countess Lilias Road, the CCTV recording shows the offender pulling a female customer away from the counter before confronting owner Surya Dev with the weapon.

Mr Dev jumps back as the man thrusts the axe toward him, before allowing him to come around the counter and take the whole till.

The man is then seen running down the street, as the wire swings wildly, and turning right down Oakley Road.

Mr Dev, who has run the shop for two years, having moved from London, said it was the first time such an incident had taken place.

He said his wife and two children, an eight-year-old boy and eight-week-old girl, were upstairs at the time of the robbery.

“The unfortunate thing is, we are struggling with the business,” he said.

“The business is not taking any profits. It’s hand to mouth, it’s very tight.

“There’s a lot of competition here, the Tescos, Home Bargains and Lidl, all these shops around,” he said.

“People are just coming here to buy newspapers, mostly the Standard, and they come for cigarettes."

Mr Dev said he had not yet calculated exactly how much money was in the till at the time of the robbery, but estimated it could “take five or six months, maybe more than that, for me to recover from the loss”.

“We are working 16 or 18 hours a day.”

He said he had to close early after the incident as police were at the shop, and opened around 8.30am this morning, more than two hours later than normal.

Asked if he had any anxiety about opening today, Mr Dev said: “I had to. Otherwise we can’t survive.”

The offender was described as being 5ft 6ins tall and aged in his 20s.

Any witnesses to the incident or anyone with information should call police on 101 or email 101@gloucestershire.police.uk and quote incident number 361 of September 20.