TWO thugs carried out terrifying armed robberies on lone female store workers.

James McDowell, 56, and Robert Donnelly, 49, initially struck at the Wee 10 O'Clock Shop in Shotts, Lanarkshire last December.

The duo escaped with more than £7,000 after threatening a worker with metal bars.

McDowell and Donnelly – along with John Wilson, 39, – then targeted the 10 O'Clock Shop in nearby Wishaw just a fortnight later.

The robbers this time made off with around £1000 after demanding to get into a safe.

A judge was told how the women involved in each raid were left badly traumatised by their ordeals.

McDowell and Donnelly are now behind bars after they admitted to the two assault and robberies.

Wilson had his bail continued meantime as he pleaded guilty to being involved in the second raid.

All three will return to the dock next month to be sentenced.

The female worker in the first robbery was closing up at night when McDowell and Donnelly stormed in.

The High Court in Glasgow heard the pair were armed and masked.

The petrified woman was told at one point: “This bar is going round your head.”

The duo escaped with cash as well as cigarettes.

Prosecutor Steven Borthwick said the victim suffers flashbacks, panic attacks and sleeplessness.

The woman was in the second raid was in her work alone as McDowell and Donnelly came in yelling: “Where's the money? Where's the safe?”

After fleeing with loot, they left in a car driven by Wilson.

Mr Borthwick said McDowell, of Carluke, Lanarkshire, had previously been jailed for nine years for attempted murder.

Donnelly, also of Carluke, was locked up for class A drug supply in 2007.

Wilson, of Shotts, already had convictions for dishonesty and violence.

Sentencing was deferred for reports.