A SHOPKEEPER has spoken of his terror after being held-up at knifepoint by an alcohol-fuelled masked robber.

Despite fearing for his life, Mehmet Ekinci foiled late-night raider Stephen Sherwood after beating him with a broom and forcing him to the floor.

With the help of his assistant Medet Coban and a plucky member of the public Sherwood was disarmed and restrained until police officers arrived at the Premier store on Holdenhurst Road, Bournemouth.

Mr Ekinci, 41, suffered sleepless nights and was too traumatised to work in the family business for more than a month.

But on the day Sherwood, 18, was jailed for two years and three months he finally returned for a morning shift.

He told the Daily Echo: “I’m still too frightened to work alone or at night.

“The memories keep flooding back and I am scared that another customer will pull a knife on me again. The sentence isn’t long enough; he will be out in just over a year.

“At first I thought he was joking but when he started waving the blade towards me I realised he was deadly serious.

“I called on Medet to get a brush and used the broom handle to tackle him.

“We managed to get him to the floor and a customer who was coming into the shop kicked the knife away.”

Mr Ekinci’s son Salman, 20, who had to take time off from his studies in London to help out in the shop, said: “It could all have gone horribly wrong – anything could have happened.”

Sherwood of Malmesbury Park Road admitted robbery and possessing an offensive weapon last month.

Prosecutor Jennie Rickman said Mr Ekinci had been stock-taking behind the counter when he heard Sherwood’s demands for money.

The drunk teenager was wearing a balaclava and brandishing a kitchen knife with a 30cm blade when he leaned across the counter for cigarettes, pointing the blade at Mr Ekinci who used his clipboard to defend himself.

Mrs Rickman told Bournemouth Crown Court how Sherwood was left unconscious and how there was blood on the floor following the scuffle.

The entire incident was caught on the shop’s CCTV cameras.

Following his arrest Sherwood told police he had drunk two litres of port and couldn’t remember carrying out the raid.

In his defence the court heard that the offence had been “a cry for help” and Sherwood was sorry for the anguish he had caused.

His mental health was described as “fragile.”

Judge Peter Johnson told him: “This was a clumsy, drunken robbery.

“You waved a large kitchen knife, no doubt inducing terror in two people going about their lawful business and providing a useful service, for a few packets of cigarettes.

“No-one knows what might have happened; it was an extremely dangerous act.”