AROUND £28,000 was stolen at gunpoint outside a supermarket.

Two men are said to have carried out the robbery outside the Asda in Lemington, Newcastle, after arriving at the supermarket on High Row on a motorbike at around 2.10pm on Saturday. 

Police say one of the men then dismounted and threatened a G4S security guard with a suspected firearm, demanding he hand over a secure case containing an estimated £28,000. 

They then fled the scene on the motobike in the direction of the B&Q at the end of Scotswood Road.

Later that day the motorbike was found abandoned and set on fire on a field commonly used by dog walkers near Lockhaugh farm in Rowlands Gill. It was later discovered to have been stolen.

The pair are believed to have been caught on CCTV hours before as they carried out a recce of the supermarket.

  • Enquiries to identify and arrest the two people responsible are ongoing and now police have released CCTV showing the moment the offenders carried out a recce of the area.

Detective Chief Inspector Paul Knox is asking for anyone who knows the identity of the suspects, or saw the motorbike in question on Sunday, to get in touch.

He said: "We have been carrying out extensive enquiries into this robbery in the past week and the net is now closing in on these offenders.

"Our detectives have been reviewing CCTV, going house-to-house and carrying out forensic enquiries where appropriate.

"However we still need help from the public to piece together the movements of this motorbike and of those individuals involved in the robbery.

"The CCTV footage in question clearly shows the offenders carrying out a recce of the site at about 2.02pm which is just minutes before the robbery.

"We want to speak to anyone who saw the motorcycle in Lemington around that time, around Newcastle earlier that day or in Rowlands Gill where it was eventually found burnt out.

"Any piece of information, no matter how small, could be the last piece of the jigsaw that helps us to identify the individuals involved."

The motorcycle in question is described as a red Yamaha XJ6. It had been stolen from an address in Slatyford around six months earlier.

Detective Chief Inspector Knox said extra patrols had taken place in the area and reiterated that incidents of this nature were very rare.

He said: "Incidents of this nature are very rare and I want to reiterate that we do not have a problem with firearms.

"We still have to establish whether the weapon used in the robbery was even a viable weapon but our priority is to first identify those involved.

"This is being treated as an isolated incident and we have had a number of extra patrols in place to reassure the public and deter any further incidents."

Anyone with information should contact Northumbria Police on 101 quoting incident number 617 02/12/17 or call Crimestoppers, anonymously, on 0800 555 111.