An elderly newsagent left terrified after a thug poured petrol over her has been robbed for the third time in 12 months.

Dorothy Wood, 75, says it has made her even more determined to leave the shop she has run with her son Keith for 20 years.

Mrs Wood was alone at Woods Newsagent, in Bohemia Road, St Leonards, when a man burst in and placed several items on the counter.

She said: "I was suspicious of him as soon as he walked in as he had walked up and down outside the shop several times before he came in.

"He put the items on the counter and asked how much they would cost.

"When I told him he said, 'Right, now you've told me how much it's going to cost me, I'm going to use your money to pay for them'."

The man, clean-shaven and smartly dressed, went to the back of the shop and stole £900, then fled.

Mrs Wood was severely shaken by the incident, the third robbery during the past year at the shop.

She said: "We've tried varying the times when Keith goes to the cash and carry but it doesn't seem to work.

"We're still getting robbed and it's starting to affect my health."

A friend now keeps her company when she is alone in the shop in an effort to avoid further robberies.

Duncan Snape, 29, was jailed for ten years at Hove Crown Court last month after pouring petrol over Mrs Wood and threatening to set her alight.

Mrs Wood said: "I hadn't even got over the last one. Now this happens.

"It's not the sort of thing one wants at my age. I just want to leave."

The robbery comes just days after Home Office minister John Denham visited St Leonards to see how £235,000 in Government cash was being used on shop security.

His visit coincided with a major week-long police operation, code-named Cumberland II, aimed at cracking down on crime in lower St Leonards.