January 31-2014
An Iranian-born shopkeeper in England who served in the Iran-Iraq war used a chair leg and a kick to the shins to scare off armed robbers who raided his convenience store last week.
When two hooded men burst into Darius Adineh’s shop at 10 p.m. last Thursday night, he stood his ground and refused to open his cash register.
Instead he told the pair, “If you want the money, you’ll have to come and get it.”
Adineh, 44, was working alone when the two thieves—armed with a hammer, knife and very un-British baseball bat—came into his stop and made threats to kill him if he did not hand over the money.
He said: “One of the men came behind the till and he was very loud, using horrible language, effing and jeffing. I wasn’t going to give my takings away, not even 5 pounds [$8]. Some shopkeepers will say, ‘Take the money.’ But my wife and I work from 6 a.m. until 11 p.m. seven days a week and we are struggling to pay the bills, so why should I give them my takings from the till for them to smoke cannabis?”
Adineh has run the Premier Convenience Store in Little Hulton, a village of 10,000 people near Manchester in central England, for three years and has never had to fight off robbers before.
He previously served three years in the Iranian Army during the Iran-Iraq war and says he had extensive military training. He also wears a black belt in Kung Fu and continues to train. He came to Britain in 1994.
The shopkeeper used a self-defense technique to protect himself by kicking one of the men in the leg. It caused the man to drop the hammer. Adineh also said he kicked the man as he chased him out the store. Adineh was repairing a chair as the men burst in, so was also able to deter them with the chair leg he was holding.
He said: “They didn’t know they had come across somebody trained like me. Weapons don’t scare me. I know how to disarm people. I am a trained ex-soldier.
“It was so easy for me to protect myself even if I just had a small pen because I know how to use it. I wasn’t scared; it was all over within 16 seconds. I think they got more than a shock than me.
“I hope the message will be getting around criminals not to come again. They look for an easy target and I am not one.”
He said a customer called police and they arrived within seconds. But the thieves got away on foot.
Adineh said customers are shocked about how he reacted as they always see him smiling and thought he was a “soft touch.”