Armed robber scared off by 'Alligator Netty' - telegraph.co.uk

14 Aug 2008
A newsagent frightened away a knife-wielding robber after producing a larger blade in a scene straight out of Crocodile Dundee.

Annette Lewis, 46, has earned the nickname "Alligator Netty" after pulling out the blade and telling the bemused youth "my knife's better than yours"

The raider burst into A and C Lewis Newsagents, in Pontmorlais, Merthyr Tydfil, south Wales, demanding cash and cigarettes.

Mrs Lewis said: "He said 'hand over the cigarettes and £50 out of the till or you will get this'... and showed me a knife.

"I had a bigger knife under the counter for opening parcels, so I picked it up and told him 'my knife's better than yours'.

"He called me mad and went for the door. Then he said 'come on then'. I went to run after him and he ran away then."

In the 1986 film Crocodile Dundee, Paul Hogan's character pulls out a Bowie knife and tells a switchblade-carrying mugger "That's not a knife, this is a knife."

Mrs Lewis said family and friends were now calling her "Alligator Netty" and comparing her to Hogan's character.

She added: "I was lucky really as it could have gone the other way, but I think I shocked him more than he shocked me. Let's hope it's put him off and he doesn't do it again."

South Wales Police have launched an inquiry.