AN ARMED masked robber threatened to shoot a 48- year-old woman cashier in a terrifying raid on a filling station at West End.

As exclusively reported in last night's Daily Echo, the armed raider held up the cashier at gunpoint before escaping with £140 in cash from the Texaco Star service station in Townhill Park Way in the early hours of Wednesday.

The cashier, who lives in Southampton but does not wish to be named, was not hurt but was still very shaken by her ordeal.

She told the Daily Echo how she feared for her life as, at one stage, the raider, who threatened to shoot her, leapt on the counter.

All she could see was his eyes through a slit in a mask and she said: "I was petrified and it is something that I will never forget."

The cashier, who has worked at the service station for nearly three years, said she would be returning to work.

"This is not going to stop me. I want to carry on as normally as I can," she said.

She recalled how what appeared to be a normal late shift at the service

station turned to terror.

It was at about 2.17am when she heard the door open and she said: "The next thing I saw was this chap with a gun in his hand pointing it at me. It was at face level and I did not know whether it was real or fake."

He ordered the terrified cashier to open the till and she handed over £20 and £10 notes.

But she said: "I was bit slow in getting the fivers out and he did say he would shoot me."

The cashier managed to push the panic button but then the masked raider leapt on to the counter.

She said: "I stepped back because I did not know what he was going to do. He put his hand in the till to take the large coins and a couple of times he said he was sorry."

He then jumped off the counter and ran off.

Police have issued a description of the man who was in his late teens or early 20s, 5ft 7in and of slim build.

And he fled with another white male in a white Austin Maestro car.