A TEENAGE serial shoplifter who raided a shop at gunpoint and pistol whipped its owner, has been put behind bars.

Vincent Stickings, aged 18, subjected the shop owner Masum Ahmed, to a terrifying ordeal, a jury at Blackfriars Crown Court was told.

Accompanied by an unidentified accomplice wielding a Samurai sword, Stickings screamed at Mr Ahmed: "I'll kill you. Open the till."

When Mr Ahmed, who owned the shop in Wickham Lane, Plumstead, pushed Stickings away after recognising his voice, the teenager hit the shopkeeper over the head with the gun barrel.

The two robbers, who wore masks over the bottom half of their faces, kept up their threats as Stickings went behind the counter while his partner grabbed two bottles of spirits.

Stickings then yanked the till out of the wall and they fled with the day's takings of £400 with Mr Ahmed close behind.

Mr Ahmed recognised Stickings voice because he used to live in Wickham Lane.

He picked Stickings out at a police identification parade, although his accomplice has never been identified.

Stickings, of Thwaite Close, Erith, was convicted of robbery and possessing an imitation firearm. The gun was never found so police could not prove it was a real gun.

At the time of the raid, on November 30 last year, Stickings was already on bail for possessing a knife and cannabis.

Sentencing him to nine years in a young offenders' unit, Judge George Bathurst-Normar told Stickings: "This was a really truly terrifying attack on a shopkeeper."

He also commended Mr Ahmed for his bravery and awarded him £250.