What happened
On 28 June 2026 a shop assistant was working the till alone at the Tesco Express on Boothferry Road in west Hull, late in the evening. Ashley Irwin, 34, of Bloomfield Avenue, west Hull, came to the counter with a six-inch knife, his face hidden under a hood, and demanded she open the till.
She moved away from him. He told her: “I did not want to get this rough.” She opened the till and he took the cash. He demanded money from a second till. She told him it would not open while the first was still logged on. The prosecution said she was afraid he would harm her, and when he threatened her with the knife she opened it. He also took cigarettes.
Under the counter she pressed the panic button, which alerted other staff. A Humberside Police officer arrived at 10:06pm. Irwin was arrested two days later.
The outcome
Irwin admitted robbery and causing criminal damage. At Grimsby Crown Court, Recorder Peter Makepeace KC told him the assistant had been “terrified”, and said: “With great fortitude, she raised the alarm. You were losing control and presented a real danger. You caused complete fear.”
He jailed Irwin for three years and eight months. The court heard he had 55 previous convictions, including thefts and burglaries. She later asked to be transferred from the store.
What went wrong
One person was on that till. Between her and the blade was a counter and her own judgement.
The second till is the part worth studying. She held him off by explaining it would not open while the first was logged on, and he believed her. That bought time, but nobody had decided in advance that she should buy time. It was a person improvising under threat.
The panic button did what a panic button should: it brought colleagues. It was pressed after the money had gone, which is what panic buttons are for, and their limit.
Nothing published records Tesco’s review of manning that night, the counter’s visibility from the rest of the store, or any support beyond her transfer request.
What it teaches
An under-counter panic button is cheap and it works, if a lone retail worker can reach it without looking away from the person in front of them. It depends on three things: reachable, known, and answered by someone who comes.
The harder question is the counter. A lone till should be laid out so no one can get within knife range without being seen and challenged on the way in, and so the person behind it has a way out. The second till not opening while the first was live was an accidental control. Staff who know how their tills behave under a robbery are better off than staff who find out.
Questions for the room
- Where is your panic button, can you reach it without looking away from the person in front of you, and who does it alert?
- Do you know which of your tills will open under a robbery, and could you say so convincingly?
- What happens in the sixty seconds after a robber leaves: who locks the door, who calls, and what is not touched?
- If you asked for a transfer after an incident, what would your employer offer instead?
Evidence and limits
Confidence: probable. One source: the Hull Daily Mail. The robbery, the plea, the sentence and the judge’s remarks are reported in detail, but no second outlet corroborates the account and no Tesco statement or review appears in it. The assistant is not named and no identifying detail about her is used here. The only time given is the officer’s 10:06pm arrival.
Our lone working training covers the alarm, the counter and what to do in the minute after.
Sources
- Hull Daily Mail, 2026 · https://www.hulldailymail.co.uk/news/hull-east-yorkshire-news/judge-praises-tesco-workers-great-11168269
Reviewed 20 October 2026.