Police in Fraserburgh are hunting an armed robber who held up a pet shop in the town-centre.
Staff at Pets Palace were in shock after the man raided the premises at knifepoint and walked away with £60 in petty cash.
Owner Graham Skene and staff member Linda McRobbie were feeding the animals in the Hanover Street shop when the lone robber entered with a blade at around 4.30pm on Sunday.
Pets Palace is closed to the public on a Sunday and the only money in the till was the float.
Yesterday the shop re-opened as normal, with a defiant Ms McRobbie insisting it was business as usual.
She said: “We’re a bit shook up but we’re okay. Last night I didn’t sleep much but you just have to get on with it.
“The shop is closed on a Sunday but we have small animals so they need fed.
“We came in to do our normal feed and restock and we had only been here five or 10 minutes when this person appeared with a knife.
“He actually apologised. ‘I’m sorry, this is an robbery’, he said. If he was really sorry he wouldn’t have come in the first place.”
Ms McRobbie said the intruder spoke with an eastern European accent, and she was hopeful that law-abiding locals would help to identify him.
“He had one of those snoods up over his nose so only his eyes and hands were visible,” she said.
“He was carrying a knife – I saw the blade and went into panic mode.
“It wasn’t a big knife but it doesn’t matter what size it was.
“Fraserburgh gets a bad name. But there’s a lot of good people out there, and we’ve had a lot of support.”
No one was injured during the incident.
Police Scotland are appealing for information and last night a spokeswoman said: “The suspect is described as being a man, wearing blue jeans and a black jacket with distinctive white logos on the chest and shoulders.
“A group of young people are believed to have passed the shop prior to the incident and may have information that could assist inquiries.”