Ms Ann-Marie Horan:

My pharmacy has been robbed several times. The most recent robbery was probably the worst because it occurred while my children were on the premises. It was a Saturday morning and my husband had just brought them from football. They were in the dispensary and, as such, would not have been visible from outside. The pharmacy was busy at the time and I had my back to the door because I was fetching eye drops for a customer. When I turned around, there was a knife at my neck and someone was pushing me and telling me to open the till. Two men had come into the pharmacy. They were muffled up in the way they were dressed and looked odd. Martina from the credit union next door had seen them walk across the car park and telephoned the police. The customers in the pharmacy had left the premises, but I was too stressed to realise what was happening. I was screaming and had a huge desire to press a panic button. In my mind, I was telling my husband to get the boys out the back door but, of course, the boys came closer because I was screaming. The robbers told me not to press the panic button. We have a panic button on the till and another in a different part of the shop. I opened the till and the second man who had a gun asked my husband for the Z-drugs, valium and so on. My husband said he did not know where they were as he was not a pharmacist. They turned to me again and I pointed out various drugs to them before pressing the panic button. One of the men told the other that I had pressed the panic button and that they both needed to leave. At that, they left the pharmacy.

The experience was extremely stressful and particularly scary because my children had witnessed the entire incident. Although they did not feel physically threatened, they could see that I was being physically threatened and asked my husband if the man was going to hurt their mummy. The problem is that this type of crime can take place at any time in a pharmacy. The men simply walked out of the pharmacy and that was that. They disappeared or perhaps they were caught for a different crime at a different stage.

The back of my pharmacy is fitted with steel doors and windows, while the upstairs floor is rented out to dentists. Two weeks ago someone broke an upstairs window, climbed in and set off the alarm. The person in question was unable to enter the pharmacy but did damage to the building. I would not dream of claiming on my insurance for the damage caused because it provides cover for unlikely, rather than likely, events. If I were to claim every time small amounts of money were taken, I would no longer be able to get insurance cover, which means that we would have to bear the costs of all these events. That being said, the worst part is the psychological element.