The man, who threatened the staff of a convenience store in West Lothian with a weapon before stealing £2,000 in cash, has been arrested.
The 46-year-old man is due to appear at Livingston Sheriff Court on Monday, June 30.
According to local news outlets, at around 8.15pm on Thursday (June 26), a balaclava-clad man dressed in a grey tracksuit entered Armadale's Premier Lower Bathville store.
In the shocking CCTV footage shared by the store owner, the man is seen aggressively pushing the man behind the till before raising a large knife and ordering him to open the till.
While the man threatened and forced the store assistant to open the till, he himself came forward and took the cash from till before walking out of the store, as can be seen in the footage shared below.
Abdul Manan, who owns the Premier convenience store said they had minor incidents in the past but nothing like this, adding that the store assistant was "shaken but is doing ok".
Manan, who was not in the store at the time, said he was first alerted to the incident after the store clerk, Atta, contacted him immediately after it happened.
Manan said, “Atta told me there's been a robbery at the shop but the first thing I wanted to know was that he was ok. He said he was so I said just hang up and call the police and I'm on my way.
"He's been working in the shop for quite a while and that's the first time this has ever happened.
“I believe the man was seen at around 7.45pm standing at the bus stop next to the shop for half an hour, keeping an eye on the store just to see when he can go when there's nobody around. And then he's went in the shop about 8.15pm with what seemed to be a meat cleaver."
The store assistant was getting ready to close the shop for 9pm, when the incident happened. Nearly £2,000 pounds was stolen.
“The police were here until around 2am on Friday and forensics have been out. Because I shared the CCTV video on social media lots of people have come back to me as well with information and I have given that to the police," Manan said.
