A man was tasered and arrested by police on Monday in connection with an attempted robbery at a travel agency.
Armed officers were called following reports that a man had entered Premier Travel in Newmarket, Suffolk.
Premier Travel managing director Susan Papworth said: “With regard to the attempted armed robbery which took place at our Newmarket branch, we can confirm that all our staff are safe and perfectly well.
“A man armed with a knife attempted to rob the branch but none of the staff were threatened or hurt in any way. We have been in constant contact with them throughout and the branch re-opened at 9.30am on Tuesday.”
Witnesses said a woman ran out of the premises and yelled “someone call the police,” the East Anglian Daily Times reported.
While armed officers descended on the Suffolk shopping centre, police in Cambridge were sent to the headquarters of Premier Travel in the city in what appears to have been confusion over where the robbery was taking place.
Cambridgeshire police said they had received a 999 call from the travel agency’s headquarters in Cambridge, mistakenly believing the armed robbery was taking place there and not in Newmarket.
A police spokesperson said: “We received reports of an armed robbery at about 1.40pm yesterday afternoon in Milton Road, Cambridge. Armed officers were deployed, however, upon arrival it was established the incident location was in Newmarket, Suffolk.
“It is unfortunate that members of the public were alarmed by this, however we were responding to calls for service which was reported from a location in Cambridge.”
However, Papworth denied this, saying: “The initial phone call to the police definitely didn’t come from our head office and was reported by our Newmarket branch office.
“By the time the police officers arrived at our headquarters in Cambridge the incident was already completely under control and being dealt with superbly by the local police in Newmarket.”
Suffolk police said they arrested a 52-year-old man from Newmarket after deploying armed police officers who fired two taser shots.
The suspect was later arrested on suspicion of robberies at a bank and bookmakers in the town.