A heroic pensioner wrestled a masked robber to the ground during a terrifying raid at a city centre jewellers.

David McLanaghan, 72, jumped into action after seeing a frightened shop assistant with her hands up at Stilwell’s in Burgate.

After pouncing on the raider, the pair grappled on the ground, leaving Mr McLanaghan badly bruised as the man fled.

VIDEO: Brave pensioner, 72, grapples with robber in jewellery raid

But the grandfather’s brave intervention may have prevented the raid escalating into something a lot more violent.

He recalled how he first became suspicious after seeing a man dressed in black and wearing a mask loitering outside the shop.

“I had just popped into town to do some shopping on Saturday morning and was walking past Stilwell’s about 9.30am when I saw him and thought, ‘he looks very dodgy’,” he said.

“When I turned around to look back he had vanished, and straight away I suspected he had gone into the jewellers.

“So I went back and looked in the window and was horrified to see him in there and an assistant with her hands in the air.”

Store bosses say the man demanded cash and was given £25 before telling the shop assistant to open the safe, for which she had no keys.

Mr McLanaghan said he went into the shop without a thought for his own safety and tried to apprehend the robber, who was threatening a woman behind the counter and demanding money.

“I went straight in and tackled him,” he said. “We fought and spilled out on to the pavement.

“I managed to hold him down on the ground for a few seconds but he was much younger and stronger than me.

“He was shouting ‘get off me’ and he managed to break free and run off down the road. But I did tear off a strip of his jacket, which may help the police.”

Mr McLanaghan, who is retired and lives in Canterbury, suffered severe bruises to his arms but does not regret getting involved.

“I didn’t think about my own safety,” he said. “I was just very angry that someone could think of robbing a hard-working family business.

“Unfortunately, there were only a few women tourists nearby and nobody who could really get involved. I’m just sorry I couldn’t hang on to him because he deserved to be caught.”

Mr McLanaghan described the man as possibly in his early 20s and of mixed race appearance.

He spoke with a foreign accent.

He says he suspects he was working with a hooded accomplice who he had spotted on a small bike hiding around the corner near the shop seconds before the incident.

Police issued a CCTV image of the masked robber in an appeal for witnesses and information. The same man is also thought to have visited Simmons jewellers minutes earlier.

After fleeing the scene, he was spotted turning left into Stour Street from Hospital Lane.

Anyone with information should call police on 01843 222289, quoting reference ZY/039852/16.