A TERRIFIED garage worker has told how masked raiders threatened to chop off his hands with a 12ins machete.
Father-of-three Ivan Sackville said he was "left shaking" after he was shoved into a back room by one of the robbers, who then started "screaming like a banshee" at him to open a safe.
The 48-year-old said he told them he did not have a key and the man grabbed the blade of the knife and threatened to "smash him over the head with it".
While this was happening, the accomplice was filling a bag with cash he was grabbing from the till of the Total garage in Mickleover.
The pair ran into the shop, on the A516 Etwall Road, 15 minutes before it was due to close at 10pm on Thursday. In dramatic scenes, captured clearly on CCTV, they jumped over the counter and shoved the blade into Mr Sackville's face.
Within two minutes they had fled the scene having snatched cigarettes as they left.
Mr Sackville, a former Toyota worker, said: "One pushed me back into the back room and was screaming at me like a banshee to open the safe.
"I said 'I haven't got a key to the safe, mate' and he said 'give me the keys to the safe or I'll chop you hands off'."
Mr Sackville, who has worked at the shop since December last year, said he was cashing up at the time of the offence.
He said during his employment there he had experienced a few people fill up with petrol before fleeing without paying, but had never faced a pair of masked robbers before.
He said: "When the first bloke came jumping over the counter I just threw my hands up and said 'take what you want, mate, just don't hurt me'.
"While I was in the back room the other man was rooting through the till pulling out all the cash.
"I was saying 'take whatever you want, just take it' and he started to get more aggressive.
"He then grabbed the machete by the blade and held it up. I was expecting him to smash me over the head with it and I was thinking 'just don't cut me' but then he lowered his hand, the pair of them reached and grabbed some cigarettes and jumped back over the counter.
"As they were leaving, one of them said to me 'don't move for five minutes or we'll come back and do you'."
Joe Dreher is the manager of the garage and was called there by police after Mr Sackville had dialled 999.
The 24-year-old said: "Ivan wanted to come back to work the following day, which was remarkable, but I told him the last thing he should do was come back and told him to have the day off and enjoy the sun.
"We have handed CCTV footage to the police and it shows how incompetent these robbers were.
"They keep dropping the cash on the floor and left a 'bread crumb' trail of pound coins leading out of the shop."
A spokesman for Derbyshire Police said detectives were following a number of lines of enquiries, including examining the CCTV Mr Dreher has handed to them.
He said: "Both men were white, around 6ft tall and in their 20s. Anyone who was driving past at the time or has information should call us on 101."
