Melbourne mum stabbed chasing down robber, and she'd do it again

A single mother who was stabbed during an armed robbery at her Melbourne newsagency says she’d do it all again to stand up to criminals.

She has told how she followed the thief as he fled her Carlton North shop, not realising she’d been badly injured.

Back behind the counter after two weeks off, newsagent Anita Chen has a few battle scars after a defiant confrontation with an armed thief.

He pulled a knife but Anita fought back.

“I don’t want them thinking I am a woman and not big enough so they can take advantage of me, and that’s the image I want to show,” she said.

As the thief ran to a taxi with the cash register, Anita pulled open the cab’s door as bystanders dragged him out.

“The next door lady asked is there any hurt. I said I don’t know, maybe there’s an ache, probably I hit something,” Anita said.

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“Then I pull up my clothes and I am bleeding there.”

One customer said she admired Anita’s stamina, as well as her usually friendly persona.

Anita works at her shop seven days a week to put her kids through private high school.

This is the first armed robbery she’s faced in her 14 years and if it happens again she says she will still stand her ground.

“I still would scare them away, I think, because I think no one deserves this,” Anita said.