Melbourne 7-Eleven worker's frightening encounter on first night shift

A university student on his first night shift at a 7-Eleven in Melbourne was interrupted on his dinner break when thieves smashed into the convenience store.

Veera Bandila, the manager of the franchise on Ashley Street in Braybrook, said his employee had shut the door and was in the back office on his dinner break when he heard "some noises".

"Then bang, he went and looked at them, they were breaking the front doors, trying to break in and then he quickly came back in and he locked himself in the safe haven," Bandila said.

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Bandila said the thieves went straight to the tobacco cabinet, grabbed some cigarettes and put them into a bin bag.

He said the intruders then grabbed cash before they took off in a getaway car.

A short time later they lost control of the vehicle and crashed through the fence of a family home.

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The sound of the accident startled residents of the street.

"It was terrible, it frightened me, I couldn't get to sleep afterwards because I didn't know what was going on," one neighbour said.

Another resident said he "knew straight away" what the noise was.

"I thought that had to be an accident of some sort because it was a little bit of screech," he said.

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The thieves allegedly ran from the scene before police arrived.

Detectives gathered evidence at the convenience store this morning and dusted the cigarette cabinet for fingerprints.

The thieves remain on the run.

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