He was carrying a gun with intent to rob. She was behind the till at a Tesco petrol station.

With the odds so heavily in his favour the gunman must have thought the next few seconds would be a breeze. He had not, however, allowed for the formidable Linda Faulkner.

Instead of surrendering the £15 cash from her till, the 51-year-old turned to the raider and told him she was too busy to deal with him.

I just got on with it," she said. "British people don't stop work just because someone is trying to bully us with guns."

Jurors heard that Collinson walked into the petrol station in Cheltenham at around 8pm on February 12 and put a chocolate bar on the counter in front of cashier Hayley Holder.

But instead of pulling out his wallet to pay he produced a red drawstring bag, told her he had a gun and ordered her to fill the bag with money.

Brendon Moorhouse, prosecuting, said: "He then placed down what appeared to be a gun.

"Miss Holder started to do what he told her and put the notes from the till into the bag. Then when he pointed the gun at her, she started to put £1 and £2 coins into the bag. He added, 'The other till as well', pointing to Linda Faulkner's till."

But when Miss Holder went over to her colleague, Miss Faulkner flatly refused to put her till money in the red bag.

Miss Faulkner, a mother of one, said: "Hayley came over to me with this red bag and said, 'You've got to put money into it'.

I said, 'Whatever for?' She said, 'Because there's a man with a gun'. I said, 'I'm sorry, he'll have to wait, because I'm busy'. At the same time I thought I'd better press the panic button. I just carried on serving and ignored the man. I was just absolutely numb.

Fair warning, criminals: Do not mess with Hafize Sahin.

Not letting her slight frame deter her, Sahin wielded an ax against a masked man who tried to rob her at gunpoint on Saturday, swinging with gusto at the would-be robber before he fled empty-handed.

"I said, "Get out, get out!" recalled Sahin, who was back at work at the register Tuesday. "I didn't want to hit him. I just wanted him to get out of here."

The diminutive clerk -- somewhere shy of 5 feet tall and just 90 pounds -- was behind the counter at her family's business, Southaven Convenience on Montauk Highway in Brookhaven, about 8 p.m. when the man, his face covered with a bandanna, walked in, stuck a gun in her face, and demanded cash.

A store surveillance video, released Tuesday by Suffolk police, shows Sahin, wearing a long dress and a headscarf, stalling the intruder for several seconds, pecking at the cash register and searching with one hand for a panic button.

Suddenly, she grabs a 2 1/2-foot ax from under the counter, cocks it over her narrow shoulder, and takes a half dozen chops at the man, even reaching over the counter at her 6-foot target. The frightened intruder steps back and aims his gun again. But apparently confused by the onslaught, he then runs out the door with Sahin in pursuit to the parking lot.