Is this shopkeeper the bravest man in Britain?
He chases gun-toting thugs out of his store with baseball bat... twice
A FEARLESS shopkeeper grabbed a baseball bat to fight off a gunman who raided his store – just two years after thwarting an identical attack in the same way.
Kam Tanda, 42, nicknamed ‘Batman’ by friends after the first robbery, never thought he would be staring down the barrel of a gun again.
But when thieves burst into his supermarket and pointed a pistol at him, the father-of-two grabbed his trusty bat to save his threeyear-old son, who was sitting on the counter.
CCTV footage released yesterday shows the youngster playing with a toy oblivious to the danger after a gunman burst into the store with a female accomplice.
Despite being terrified that his son could be shot, Mr Tanda refused to open the till.
For 30 terrifying seconds, he and the gunman fought amid toppling shelves. Even when the attacker wrenched the bat from his hands, Mr Tanda refused to give up and eventually managed to chase the thief out of his Birmingham store.
In January 2015, Mr Tanda made headlines after seeing off another armed robber with the bat. Thanks to his bravery, the gunman and his male accomplice fled with just a crate of beer and a mobile phone.
Police have never found the pair – and the gunman in the second attack at 4.20pm on August 9 also remains at large. Asked yesterday whether he was Britain’s bravest shopkeeper, Mr Tanda said: ‘I don’t think I’m brave, I just had to save my son. Anyone would do it.’
Describing the attack, he added: ‘I saw a woman come in first, she walked around the store as if she was casing the place out.
‘When I confronted her she walked out of the store.
‘I went outside to see her go around the corner, nodding to someone in the car park.
‘I had a feeling something was not right so I locked the tills.
‘Seconds later she comes back in as I’m playing with my son on the counter. The gunman followed her, obviously high on drugs.
‘He was shouting, “Empty the tills” – but he was so high he could barely speak. I attempted to press the panic button but it was too far away so I got the baseball bat.
‘When I saw him wave the gun at my son I just flipped. I knew I had to save him. I was terrified he would be hurt.
‘I thought if someone has the guts to walk into a shop and pull a gun on someone, they probably have the guts to pull the trigger.
‘My son didn’t realise the danger he was in, it all happened so quickly. I never thought I would be in this position again.’ He said the hold-up at his Vardon Supermarket in Kings Norton could have ended in tragedy.
The gunman fled empty-handed, but police later arrested a woman and another man in a suspected getaway car.
A West Midlands Police spokesman said: ‘A man believed to be armed with a gun entered the store but fled after the shopkeeper refused to hand over cash.
‘Two others, a 51 year-old woman and man, 36, were arrested on suspicion of attempted robbery and released under investigation.’