Shop worker bound in gun raid

A teenage shop assistant was threatened with a gun and tied up during an armed robbery at an Essex supermarket.

The 19-year-old had been locking up the Lidl store on the Greyhound Trading Park, Southend, just before 2000 BST on Tuesday when he was approached by two men, one brandishing a hand gun.

Essex Police said the robbers forced the shop assistant back into the store, tied his wrists and feet and took a safe key from his pocket.

A spokesman for the police said the two men then stole "several thousand pounds" from the safe.

After the two men had left the store, the teenager managed to struggle to a telephone to call the police who then freed him.

The first offender were described as a white man, about 5 ft 10 in tall and was dressed all in black.

The second was a black man, also about 5 ft 10 in tall and had dreadlock hair, which may have been a wig.