An armed robber gave up his criminal intent and fled after a shop assistant offered him a cup of tea and a heart-to-heart talk in the Czech Republic, the Ananova news agency reported on Friday.

The robber pulled out a gun and demanded money in a supermarket in the town of Cesky Tesin in the north of the country. However, 59 year-old shop assistant Marketa Vachova took the initiative from the very beginning.

Instead of complying with the robber's demands, she offered him a "nice cup of tea and a piece of cake".

"I asked him why he was doing this and we got talking. There was no one else in the shop, so I guess he relaxed a bit, and in the end he apologized," the agency quoted the woman as saying.

Vachova failed to explain why she had been so welcoming towards the robber, whose face was covered with a Spiderman mask, but nevertheless she was sure that he was "a nice young man."

"I said if he wanted he could come and talk to me and have a cup of tea and slice of homemade cake to talk about his problems. He agreed and then walked off," the woman said.

Local police are searching for the tea-loving robber. He faces 10 years in jail if apprehended.