A SHOP owner told how he was stunned when a masked teenager pulled out a 10-inch kitchen knife on him and his partner in a terrifying armed robbery.

Michael Stone, 62, owner of Worthing Watersports, said he did not know how to react when 19-year-old George Horstead stormed the shop in Alinora Crescent, Worthing.

Horsted was jailed for three years last month following the robbery on April 17 last year.

Mr Stone, who has run the shop with partner Sue Reynolds for 13 years, told The Argus: “He knew exactly what he was doing and he knew exactly where this place was.

“I think he had someone come in to scope the place, and then moments later he came tearing in a balaclava and shouting ‘give me your f***ing money’ .

“When he was waving the knife in our face we didn’t have time to absorb it, because it had never happened before we were stunned and couldn’t take it in.”

The teenager fled the store with £50 in cash before making off on a bicycle.

Horsted, of The Quadrant, Goring, Worthing, was sentenced to three years in jail at Lewes Crown Court last month for the robbery.

In mitigation the former labourer said he had been on a combination of drugs and alcohol, and that he had been on a bender.

He said he needed money to get his next fix, and that the shop was one of the first places he would pass on the way home.

Mr Stone said Horstead was stupid for getting caught, and said the terrifying ordeal had left him nervous when his wife or him were working alone.

Mr Stone added: “I am pleased he he has been sent to young offender’s institute to serve his sentence.

“He is stupid. He had a carrier bag to put his mask in and he could have ran away, but he chucked it all in the street.

“I then found the bag with the mask and they found a knife in the street, which was used to link his DNA to the crime.

“It is a shame that when it is a weekend or bank holiday, when we are the only shop on the parade open, and two or three young lads come in I get nervous why they are in the store.”

In his sentencing remarks Judge Charles Kemp said: “If nothing else this case demonstrates how the appalling effects of drink and drugs on otherwise perfectly decent men who go out and behave this way.”