POLICE are hunting a man who fled empty handed after an attempted armed robbery at a shop in Northwich town centre on Saturday afternoon.

The man entered Northwich Art Shop in Witton Street just after 4pm.

He loitered in the shop and waited for other customers to leave before approaching the counter with what appeared to be a gun inside a carrier bag.

The offender pointed the carrier bag at a 69-year-old shop assistant and demanded cash before jumping over the counter and continuing to verbally threaten him.

He tried to get into the till but was unable to do so and fled empty handed after the shop assistant summoned help on his security-radio. When leaving the shop, the offender turned right and ran up Witton Street towards the library.

The shop assistant, who did not want to be named, was left very shaken but wasn't injured.

He said: "I am still recovering from it, you can't imagine what it is like. The police arrived pretty handily and and they had an armed response crew on the scene very quickly."

The man was in the shop for a good quarter of an hour, waiting for all the other customers to leave before he approached me.

He was certainly seen around by a number of people at least 12 people must have seen him in the shop but obviously they wouldn't have realised anything like this was about to happen.

The offender was white, 5ft 10ins tall and of thin build. He appeared to be about 30.