Shocking CCTV footage shows the moment a tourist in Thailand batters a gold shop owner with a metal bar to steal 25,000 pounds worth of necklaces before he was caught yesterday (March 14).

Mohammed Ibrahim Malki, 32, and his Thai prostitute girlfriend Aisha Udomwatananon, 30, donned balaclavas before storming into the jewellery store on Monday night.

The Qatari national clobbered the boss, slammed his head into a glass case, then repeatedly punched him in front of his terrified wife. Accomplice Aisha then crammed gold chains into a rucksack.

The pair fled the scene in a rented car but police tracked them on CCTV and they were later caught hiding in a Baptist church in Pattaya.

Officers arrested the couple yesterday on suspicion of theft and found 50 gold chains each costing 22,000 baht (505GBP), and a total value of 25,267GBP.

Shop owner Janyong Nopparat, 48, said: ''The robbers came in and the man hit me with the metal bar. He pushed me into the glass case. My wife was also injured.

''My brother chased them but could not catch them. My wife has been really shocked and traumatised by it. But I am just very relieved that the gold has been found.''

Police in the Utai Thani province in northern Thailand where the theft happened said the car had been rented from the tourist resort of Pattaya before being driven to the gold shop 250 miles away. The two alleged robbers were detained today.