Victor Bates was injured in the attack

Victor Bates, 66, told a jury he grabbed a fencing foil and tried to stab the gunman moments after the shooting in the family shop in Arnold.

Peter Williams, 18, of no fixed address, denies murder. Three others deny charges relating to the robbery.

Mrs Bates, 64, of Nottingham, was shot in September 2003, the continuing trial at Stafford Crown Court heard.

Mr Williams also denies charges of conspiracy to rob the Time Centre, possessing a firearm with intent and causing grievous bodily harm to Victor Bates.

Crowbar attack

Mr Bates told the jury that the gunman first aimed the weapon at him and then at his daughter Xanthe.

The court heard that two men entered the store and approached the cabinet containing the most expensive items, forcing the lock with a crowbar.

Marian Bates was shot in the chest

Mr Bates described how the gunman pointed a firearm at his daughter.

"He was going to shoot my daughter and my wife came forward and stepped in between my daughter and the gunman and he shot her in cold blood."

Choking back tears, Mr Bates told the court he would have killed the gunman if he could after watching him shoot his wife dead.

He said: "As soon as the shot was fired I went for a foil, a fencing foil, that I had got secreted to the left hand side of that main window.

"He turned the gun to me and pulled the trigger, but mercifully for me, it did not fire.

"He fired as I put the phone down ... and she dropped to the floor face down Xanthe Bates

"They were whirling round like Dervishes."

He said the second man struck him several times across the head and face with a crowbar.

His daughter Xanthe later told the court how she was frozen with fear when the gunman pointed the pistol at her as she was on the phone to her husband.

"I see my mum coming past me with arms open and her hair whooshing past me, shouting `No'.

"He fired as I put the phone down... and she dropped to the floor face down."

'Everlasting regret'

Gregory Dickinson QC, prosecuting, asked Mr Bates: "The premises had two CCTV cameras but on 30 September one of them was switched off and the other was not recording. Is that right?"

Mr Bates replied: "One should have been working. The other one, to my everlasting regret, I failed to switch on that morning."

Two other men, Craig Martin Moran, 22, of Bestwood, and Dean Robert Betton, 23, of Broxtowe, are both charged with conspiracy to rob the store.

Mr Moran and a fourth defendant, Lisa Unwin, 23, from Bestwood, face a further charge of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.

All four defendants deny all charges.