A brave female shop assistant sent smash-and-grab thieves packing by walloping them with a mop when she foiled an attempted robbery at a Stoke Newington jewellers this morning.

The 24-year laid into the hamer-wielding raiders outside Erbiller jewellers where she works on the corner of Prince George Road and Stoke Newington Road.

She and a have-a-go passerby foiled the robbery after the four scooter-riding thieves struck at 10.40 am.

A sledgehammer was used by a pair of the bandits, who were all wearing motorcycle helmets, to shatter the shop’s re-inforced glass window.

But before they could help themselves to gold bangles, necklaces and chains from display cases the plucky shop assistant rushed out with the mop to tackle them

As they jumped aboard the waiting scooters to make their getaway a plucky male passerby grabbed one of the thieves pulling him from the pillion as the three other robbers roared off empty-handed.

The robber is believed to have broken his arm after falling from the scooter leaving him on the deck where he was detained until police arrived and arrested him.

Jewellery shop boss, Mahir Erbiller, paid tribute to the courage of his employee and the passerby calling them “heroes.”

The 31-year-old said: “What they did was extremely brave.

“I was in the back when they struck and could hear my shop assistant screaming, but she gave no thought to her own safety and waded into them with the mop.”