Miss Kemp was left sobbing in the aisle after she was hit on the head with a telescopic baton during a robbery
Deb Kemp's hand is visible as she is attacked with a telescopic baton
She had dared to stand up to the thugs who raided her shop. They returned to take a violent revenge.
Shocking CCTV images of the robbery capture one of the masked gang beating 43-year-old Deb Kemp with a metal baton after shoving her behind the counter.
Miss Kemp's assistant is left on the ground as the robbers flee, scattering merchandise as they go
Miss Kemp says the attack left her 'shocked'
Part-time assistant Mr Withers, 21, was forced to hand over cash from the till
Miss Kemp was left sobbing in the aisle after she was hit on the head with a telescopic baton during a robbery
Two of the masked robbers are seen alongside another newsagent worker during the raid
Although the mother of two desperately tried to escape from the blows raining down on her head, the attack continued mercilessly until she was left sobbing on the floor in one of the aisles.
The three men then fled with their haul of £1,000 in cash and hundreds of cigarettes.
Miss Kemp had earlier chased two of the men from the store while her young assistant Simon Withers grabbed the third.
But before she could lock the door from the inside the two barged back in carrying telescopic 21in-long metal police-style batons.
While one freed his accomplice, the other unleashed his vicious assault on Miss Kemp which left the divorcee with a four-inch gash in her head that needed 12 stitches.
Despite her injuries the brave shopkeeper, pictured below, was back at work the next morning.
'I just thought I needed to stop them,' she said yesterday. 'I work long and hard for my money as does everybody who works here.
'I am quite hardy and I am not going to be beaten by this scum. They don't scare me.'
She added: 'These people must be stopped.
'This could have been fatal. If they had hit either one of us in the wrong place we could have been killed.
'There was no need for them to hit us, the threat would have been enough. He came round the till and hit me when he could have gone out the door, he was intent on hitting me, he wasn't going to go.
'I'm still angry. Really, really angry.
'Why don't these people go out and get a job rather than think they can just help themselves?'
CCTV cameras were installed at her shop, Kemp Stores in Eastern Green, Coventry, after a spate of thefts over the past year. In the latest raid the gang struck at 6.50pm last Thursday.
Two of the robbers frogmarched Mr Withers, 21, to the till and forced him to hand over some cash.
But the part-time assistant rugby-tackled one of the gang moments later which stopped them from stealing more.
He said: 'It was a terrifying ordeal. But I knew that I had to do something to try to stop them getting away with it.
'I had an impulse reaction and wrestled one of the gang to the floor. He was hitting me with a baton then the other two came back into the shop.
'I'm proud that I had a go at them because people just can't go round expecting to get away with it.
'Part of me is still in shock from what happened.
'The yobs that did it are despicable and I hope they're locked up when the police catch them.'
Detective Constable Simon Tate, from West Midlands Police, said: 'This was a violent, nasty robbery in which shop workers have been assaulted trying to protect their property.
'Inquiries are on-going and forensic specialists have managed to recover evidence from the scene that hopefully will identify the offenders.'
The men, one black and two white, were aged between 20 and 23. All three wore scarves to mask their faces.
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