A petrol attendant narrowly missed being mowed down last night as a driver raced away from a forecourt without paying – taking advantage of a power cut that blacked out a garage.

The male driver of a blue Ford Escort, thought to be in his late 20s, filled up with petrol at the Coreys Mill Sainsbury’s garage at 5.40pm at the time of a fault which knocked out lights in the garage, supermarket car park and along Hitchin Road.

Jumping back in his car he accelerated out of the garage, narrowly missing a female employee who was putting out cones to stop any more customers coming onto the forecourt.

The driver made off into heavy rush hour traffic along Hitchin Road which was confused by the non-working traffic lights at the supermarket junction.

Investigations are ongoing Herts Police said.

The power cut affected 1,749 customers in the Hitchin Road area due to a fault in an underground cable, UK Power Networks said. Electricity was restored to 99 customers within six minutes, 1146 had power back an hour after the fault, while the final 504 had power restored in stages between 7pm and 8.20pm.

A spokesman apologised for the inconvenience.