SUPERMARKET workers chased a bag-snatcher through Normanton before helping a police officer arrest him.

Adeeb Akhtar said he was among five employees of Pak Foods who helped catch the man, after he took a handbag from an elderly woman inside the store.

The 27-year-old was working in the shop at 8.40am on Saturday when the incident happened.

He said: "He ran off. The check-out staff saw him take the bag.

"All we heard was the lady screaming – we assumed she had been attacked or mugged.

"It was my first instinct to run out after him. Four or so other workers did the same.

"He was running down towards Lower Dale Road, then he went through into Cummings Street. He jumped over a wall into a garden – that's when I called the police. I don't know how he managed it – the wall was really high.

"He ran through the gardens and came out at the top of Cummings Street at the junction with Chestnut Avenue.

"The police came from the top end and we were coming from the bottom so we trapped him in between. That's where the police caught him."

Mr Akhtar, of Birmingham, said that at first there was only one officer who struggled to contain the man.

He said: "The man was trying to get away. It was difficult for the officer to control him.

"The officer pinned him to the ground then we helped by holding his arms while he handcuffed him."

Mr Akhtar said the mugging happened just after Pak Foods had opened.

He said: "It's the first time I've seen anything like this happen in the seven or eight years I've worked in the store. It was a bit of a shock.

"The police response time was very quick. They were there in minutes."

The handbag, which contained a purse, had been discarded but was found by police and returned to the woman.

Police said they had arrested a 28-year-old man on suspicion of robbery.

They said they believed he was also connected to another robbery at about the same time at the entrance to Arboretum Park. A Bulgarian woman had her handbag stolen.

The man was still in police custody yesterday.