A Tolworth shopkeeper who was repeatedly targeted by youths has been hospitalised after the gang finally beat him with weapons and robbed him in front of his wife.

Sureshkumar Aruchunarasa, 34, had been terrorised by the youths three times in two weeks and frantically tried to lock up his shop when he saw them approaching with scarves wrapped around their faces at about 7.30pm on Sunday, January 18.

But as his wife tried to pull down the shutters, he was punched to the ground, hit with a knuckle duster and beaten repeatedly by the gang for several minutes.

His brother Kesavarajah, 36, rushed to his aid but was hit on the neck with a metal pole and also needed hospital treatment.

Speaking while on crutches and with stitches in his lip, Mr Aruchunarasa said the police had not done enough when he first reported the troublemakers on February 6.

He said a group of up to 20 teenagers, some as young as 13, and including some girls, had been terrorising him at his shop Balmoral Food and Wine in Ewell Road, throwing fruit at staff and customers.

Sri Lanka-born Mr Aruchunarasa said: "If the police had taken action on the 6th, they wouldn’t have come back again.

"If the police had taken it seriously, they wouldn’t have thought I was an easy target.

"All the shops are having the same problem. It’s a real gang and it’s the same people."

He said he called police on January 8, when the teenagers threw fruit, but no officers came. A police spokesman said there was no record of his call.

Police have advised any residents who are worried about knife crime or gangs in Tolworth to attend their next Safer Neighbourhood Team meeting at Tolworth Recreation centre on February 16 so the police can "reassess their own priorities in their ward".

Father-of-one Mr Aruchunarasa, described his ordeal as "like a tsunami" because of the force from so many attackers, and said dozens of people walked past because they were too scared to intervene.

His attackers took his mobile phone and £1,000 of takings from his shops Balmoral News and Balmoral Food and Wine, which are three doors apart in Ewell Road.

He is now so scared that the gang will return that he is closing his shops five hours earlier, at dusk, missing out on business at one of his previously busiest times.

"I can’t stay there after four or five o’clock because it is dark and it’s not safe.

"I’ve been here for seven years and Tolworth is a very bad area now.

"Now I can’t leave my wife or my mother alone to run the shop while I go out to the cash and carry because it is too dangerous."

Other shopkeepers along Tolworth Broadway and Ewell Road said they had suffered similar problems.

Yogenthiran Suthakaran, owner of Best Foods, said he was threatened by a youth with a knife on the same evening Mr Aruchunarasa was attacked.

The manager of Vaishna Superfoods in Ewell Road said teenagers had thrown beetroot at customers and police should have a bigger presence in the area.

Police in Tolworth issued shopkeepers with an "alert box" last year, so staff could request help from each other in an emergency, but shop staff said this week they were rarely used.

• One person has been arrested in connection with the incident.