A BLIND woman had a knife held at her throat during a horrifying robbery at a Basildon post office.

Her two terrified daughters, aged three and five, began screaming when the masked raider burst into Martin's Newsagents in Clayhill Road and held the craft knife at their mum's neck.

The robber then shouted at the staff behind the counter to hand over cash at 11.25am on Saturday.

In her terror, the blind woman instinctively put her hand up to protect her neck and suffered a cut from the sharp blade.

The crazed robber then turned his attention to the shop manager and also put the knife to her throat until he was handed several hundred pounds in cash and fled.

There were up to ten people in the shop at the time.

The blind woman, believed to be in her thirties, was treated by paramedics at the scene but did not need hospital treatment.

The second woman was uninjured.

The robber was seen to pull of the balaclava as he ran towards Coddenham Green.