A HAVE-a-go hero window cleaner who stepped in to help stunned staff at a Poole pet store was bitten twice... by a shoplifter.

Brave Rob Franks and his wife, Carla, were visiting Pets at Home in Broadstone Way, when they noticed staff trying to detain a man.

As the thief bolted Rob sprang into action, giving chase on to the main road.

Rob, aged 34, explained: “I managed to rugby tackle the guy to the ground and hold him there.

“He was trying to throw punches but nothing connected. Then he bit me twice.

“A shop assistant chased him with me. The shoplifter was threatening both of us and when he bit me he screamed ‘I’ve got hepatitis’.”

Married dad-of-two Rob, of Rosemary Road, Poole, has since been given the all-clear from doctors.

“After he bit me I let go,” he told the Daily Echo.

“But I thought, ‘in for a penny, in for a pound’ got up and chased after him again.”

With the help of the shop worker Rob cornered the suspect until police arrived.

However, this isn’t the first time Rob has intervened against lawbreakers.

Once, at another Poole pet shop in 2011, he ordered a shoplifter to put back his ill-gotten gains.

Another time, in July 2007, Rob confronted a pair of youths in Poole’s Dolphin Shopping Centre after spotting them stealing from Wilkinsons.

“People can knock me all day long for stepping-in but I’d do it again,” he said.

“We work so hard for the little bit we do get.

“Why should somebody else be able to go into a shop, take something that isn’t theirs and think they can get away with it?

“It is not right. It is not right at all. I would do what I did again in a heartbeat.”

After last Tuesday afternoon’s drama, Rob and Carla were given a free hamster cage – the item they’d originally gone to buy for their kids – by thankful Pets at Home bosses.

l Anthony Cole, aged 32, from Poole, admitted theft from a shop, ABH and common assault at Bournemouth Magistrates’ Court on Thursday.

He was remanded in custody until sentencing at crown court next month.