Businessman fends off armed robber
The raider armed with a handgun got more than he bargained for when he held up Vincent Power.
Vincent, who suffers from a heart condition, tackled the gunman who was in his 20s and bundled him out of his William Street shop.
During the violent struggle Mr Power had a gun put to his head.
The gunman fled without anything.
Mr Power, who is a doctor of herbal medicine, was not injured.
The attempted robbery happened at around 2.20pm on Monday.
Recalling his ordeal, Mr Power said: “I was in the shop and the door was locked. A man knocked on the door and I welcomed him in. He was wearing a baseball cap, a loose jumper and black trousers. Once he got inside the door he put his hand around my neck and pulled out a revolver from under his jumper and put the gun to my head.
“He said ‘open the till quickly and give me what is in it or I will blow your head off’. I told him to blow all he liked and that he would get f**k all from here. I then hit him in-between his eyes with my fist as hard as I could. He didn’t know what hit him.”
A struggle followed as the raider tried to overpower Mr Power.
“I then managed to open the door and push him out. He stayed for a few moments and looked in at me. I could be dead. In my 35 years here, nothing like this has ever happened to me,” Mr Power said.
His son, Vincent jnr, said: “I was upstairs at the time and my father was on his own in our health food shop. The door is normally closed and people ring a bell to gain entry. The raider demanded money and my father, being the man he is, said ‘no’.”
The pensioner admitted he was “not too good” after the ordeal. “I feel a bit shaken today after what happened,” he added.
A garda spokesman said they were viewing CCTV film to try and identify the culprit.
They have not ruled out the possibility that the same man got away with €350 in an armed raid in a shop in nearby Catherine Street a short time later.
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