Woman asked out by man who robbed her at gunpoint describes terrifying experience

Her story is even stranger than you'd expect

(Getty Images/iStockphoto)

When Jo, a woman from Hertfordshire, was robbed at gunpoint, she never thought she would have to face one of her attackers ever again, let alone be asked on a date by one.

Looking back on her traumatic experience, Jo remembers it being completely surreal.

Last week she shocked viewers of Channel 5 programme The Wright Stuff when she revealed details of the strange series of events over the phone during a live recording of the show.

The Independent wanted to find out more, so we spoke to Jo to hear more about her version of the story.

One minute she was going about her day working at the post office, the next she and her co-workers were forced on the ground by men wielding guns and knives.

As it turned out, the men who attempted to carry out the robbery weren’t too clever, making a series of stupid mistakes that eventually led to their capture.

“They were absolutely rubbish,” Jo told The Independent. Not only did the men make the rookie mistake of not wearing masks, but they also didn’t even try to open the main safe that stored all of the money in the postal office.

For Jo, the worst part of her experience wasn’t the robbery itself, but the aftermath.

“In those days you didn’t get given counselling, it was just back to work the next day,” she said. “I think we were in the police station until half four and then they said: ‘You can go home now.’”

Jo had to help the police identify the criminals by picking potential suspects out from a lineup.

However, she explains that there were no glass partitions in the room when she picked individuals out from the lineup, meaning that she had to face the prospect of coming into close contact with men who had made her fear for her life.

“When you picked them out you had to touch them, there was none of this through a glass business,” she said.

Years later when Jo believed her interactions with these criminals were done and dusted, she came across one of the robbers in a nightclub.

She recalls the one who carried the shotgun being sentenced to 15 years in jail, with the other two being sentenced to 12 and 10 years.

It actually wasn’t Jo who spotted the man who had taken part in the robbery, but a friend.

“I didn’t know who he was. I didn’t recognise him at all,” she said. “It was a friend of a friend. He came over to me and he said: ‘Do you know who that is?’”

“I said no and he said that’s one of the post office robbers.”

Jo decided to confront the man to see how much he remembered from their previous encounter. She asked him: “Do you realise what you did?”

Rather than show remorse for his past actions, the man said: “Do you want to go out and talk about the whole story?”

He then proceeded to give Jo his phone number in the hopes that she would call him for a date.

Jo's story shocked viewers when she phoned The Wright Stuff (YouTube/The Wright Stuff)

“I’m not normally lost for words,” Jo said. “The funny thing is when he wrote down his number, I took it, although I did throw it away.”

The robber wasn’t as apologetic as one might hope, simply saying: “Sorry for scaring you.”

He also assured Jo that he hadn’t been one of the robbers holding a gun, as he’d been carrying a knife instead.

“I wouldn’t recognise him now at all, and like I said I didn’t know who it was at the time,” Jo said. “He honestly, genuinely thought that I would want to go out with him.”

While this story is extraordinarily strange, this isn’t the first time Jo has been pursued by weird men.

“It must be me because I phoned The Wright Stuff because I had a stalker for about a year or so,” she said.

“Where the dogs jump up at my window sill there was about an inch gap and he’d been taking photos of me and he got let off with a caution.

“Going by the photos that he took it must have been going on for well over a year.

Jo was only alerted to the stalker when a neighbour who works night shifts told her that they had spotted a man standing outside her house for hours on end.