Dairy robberies last less than three terrifying minutes. But the consequences can haunt shopkeepers for months, and years to come. Andrea Vance and Iain McGregor investigate.

This series was first published in January 2021. We are republishing it after the recent fatal stabbing of dairy worker Janak Patel and subsequent nationwide protests.

CHAPTER TWO
A CRIME OF CONVENIENCE

Customers in a rush make Vijay Patel nervous. As they bustle through the automatic door of his Palmerston Noth Four Square, the 62-year-old shopkeeper bristles. Behind the counter, memories flood back of a violent robbery in February.

Patel was stabbed, his wife Margaret knocked to the ground, and Karen, a staff member in her 50s, was beaten. The teenage robbers escaped with $2222.

“I am now very conscious when customers run into the store in a hurry.” he says. “I also get anxious when customers with hoods over their head, or with masks because of Covid 19, come into the store. This creates nervousness for me.”

Patel can’t forget the “horrendous attack".

It was a quiet Tuesday morning, just before 11.30, when the men rushed into the store.  Margaret had just walked into the back storeroom, Karen was halfway through serving a customer.

The first robber, wearing a white mask and cap and carrying a black hold-all, came around behind the counter, straight for the cigarette display. 

His accomplice vaulted the desk and beat the cowering assistant about the head, forcing her to the floor. He stamped on the till, smashing it open. A second till is booted to the ground.

“They were aggressive,” Patel said. “They were carrying the weapon and under the influence of some sort of substance. Basically, tobacco and cash was what they're looking for.”

The Patels rushed to the aid of their employee. The men launched at Margaret, throwing the diminutive 65-year-old to the ground. “I was pushed back and landed on my head,” she says.

Her forehead was bruised, her elbow badly cut and her shoulder injured. “When I was on the floor and saw the knife next to me, I feared for my life.”

She lay there and thought of her two sons and Vijay’s 90-year-old mother, who lives with the family. Now, she suffers sleepless nights and keeps a lamp lit at night.

“[It] still haunts me. There are many days when I think about what happened and I break down.

“Thinking about what would happen if that metal flower stand landed on my head. What if I got seriously hurt?”

Vijay was chased to the back of the shop, where the first robber slashed at his arm. After wounding the shopkeeper, he calmly returned to raiding the cigarette shelves. 

A customer tried to block the store exit with trolleys, but the pair escaped, punching Vijay in the face as they fled.

“I received a deep cut to my left forearm, just below my elbow... a black eye from being punched and a scar on my right cheek,” he says.

He needed four stitches and his elbow still aches at night. In the scuffle, his back was injured, which keeps him from sleeping.

“It has also affected my ability to lift heavy items in my daily routine at work. The attack has affected my lifestyle.

“I used to go for a walk three to four nights a week, but since the robbery I have only been once and I was constantly looking over my shoulder, because I was worried that someone was following me, ready to attack me.”

Patel was especially distressed that he couldn’t cook lunch for his mother on the day of the attack.

He talks of the emotional harm. “It’s created doubt in my mind about the safety and security of my staff and customers... I’m constantly worried… I often wonder about what would have happened if Margaret or I got seriously injured.”

The Patels were back at work the next day, in the store they have run for 31 years.

“We had a lot of cards. A lot of food came that day, and [customers were] really appreciative... that heals the wounds a little bit.

“What we thrive on is the wonderful community… I can't let my loyal customers down and that's what makes you get up and try again.”

Vijay is glad they did. “We have been important throughout the Covid, being an essential store...They were difficult times, as well. It's quite an honour to serve the local community with the goods they need.”

New Zealand Indian Central Association president Paul Patel is Margaret's brother, and was on the scene within minutes of the robbery.

A string of robberies in the city this year has dairy owners on edge, he says. He established a Whatsapp group for shopkeepers to alert each other of suspicious behaviour, including prowlers and counterfeit cash.

“The effect is quite horrendous. People get shaken up, because… the smaller dairies are run by husband and wife and their children. There is always this fear by the families that are running small corner dairies.”

Paul Patel says dairy owners must also deal with petty crime, like graffiti, as well as racism on a regular basis.

Police figures show there were only eight reported occurrences of racial abuse in a retail location between 2017 and July 2020. One person received a formal warning.

“It’s not a daily occurrence,” he says. “A customer may make some racist comments, or may not appreciate a language problem that the dairy owner may have. Their English may not be as clear as that person's, and he or she might take offence to it.

“Not many of them like to talk about it, because [they] feel it may retaliate and may grow from a small action or a comment to something a wee bit more.”

Police crime prevention manager in Manawatū Inspector Ross Grantham is the son of general store owners.

“I have an affinity for dairies, I’ve experienced how important the local dairy is to everyone and how often we take them for granted.

“It’s a hub of the community… It's a place for us to walk to and treat the kids to an icecream. The shopkeeper knows and welcomes the locals, regular customers with a smile and a chat.

“It’s a reflection of our past. And I think it's comforting to know, there's someone there willing to help us through the day, perhaps in a small way. But it's the small things that count.”

The robberies are often unplanned, but leave workers feeling vulnerable, he says. “It’s indicative of people who are desperate. We all know dairies no longer hold large amounts of cash. Most of our transactions are through eftpos or some sort of debit card. And most of the dairies don’t have large caches of cigarettes now simply because they are trying to minimise their risk of being robbed.”

Police encourage the use of fog cannons, panic alarms, safe rooms, CCTV cameras, removing advertising material from windows, and compliance with any demands. 

“Every robbery is a violent crime. Imagine being a sole shopkeeper confronted with a desperate person acting violently demanding cash or cigarettes.

“The fear of being harmed surely must be horrific. And many are owner-operators. So the shopkeeper who was confronted yesterday, has to attend to the shop today.

“Open the door [and] stand behind the counter like they did the day before. That must be terrifying.”

Dairies became a battleground in the suburbs as the previous National-led government drove a policy to ensure New Zealand was ‘smokefree’ within a decade.

Compounding tax hikes on tobacco pushed up its value on the black market. A pack of cigarettes can now cost more than $40. 

Between 2015 and 2017 there was a significant increase in the number of commercial aggravated robberies. A police study analysed CCTV from nearly 300 incidents across the country between October 2017 and March 2018.

The majority were in Auckland and Waikato - and the thieves were in and out within less than three minutes. 

Other businesses - like bars and petrol stations - were also targeted but dairies and superettes bore the brunt of the crime. Tobacco was the most targeted item. 

In 87 per cent of cases, dairy owners were threatened with a weapon, and someone was hurt in almost a third of incidents.

In November 2017, Nanu Patel, 62, his wife Hasumati, 53, and daughter Sarika, 30, were beaten in a vicious assault by two men in their Papakura Superette. 

Patel suffered blows to the head, face and bruised ribs, Hasumati suffered eye and Sarika endured surgery for a broken jaw.

In the same week Ajit Farrar, 58, lost an eye after being attacked by four men at his Hamilton dairy. 

Four months later, in the same city, another owner was left for dead in a pool of blood after robbers attacked him with a hammer.

The new Labour Government responded with a $1.8m crime prevention initiative to subsidise the cost of fog cannon, which acts as a deterrent by blocking an assailant’s vision so employees can retreat to a safe place. Almost 600 shops have taken up the offer. 

The Government claimed in March that commercial aggravated robberies are at their lowest level in five years.

It’s difficult to assess this claim based on the data provided by police. Stuff asked for the number of robberies per year since 2016. 

Police would only provide figures for the number of victims - which does show a drop - but not the actual number of crimes.

A grocery store has stood on the corner of Palmerston North’s Church and Summerhays streets for over a century.

For almost a third of that time, Manhar and Kanta Patel have owned the shop. 

Their icecream cones have been voted best in the city - and Manhar scoops so many in the hot weather months that he needs physiotherapy treatment.

But the summer of 2015 was marred by a robbery, that still makes the couple wary to be alone in their shop.

Just before 4pm on February 11 - five years to the day before the Awapuni Patels were held up - two men parked a Volkswagen Polo outside the superette.

They pulled up their hoods and walked in, pointing a gun at a local woman who had just bought an icecream.

“She got so frightened,” Kanta says. “I feel so sorry for her. It affected her more than me. More than a year and still she couldn't get over it.”

The 47-year-old was out the back of the shop, filling in her magazine returns. Her husband was behind the counter.

One of the men turned the gun on him and demanded cash. Kanta hid behind a table. 

“I didn't stand up because I didn't want them to see me. I just grabbed my phone… My hand [was] shaking… I couldn't even press the number... I called the police straight away. The guy was still in this shop.”

Furious, Patel gave chase brandishing a tin of cat food. The robbers, who escaped with just $1800, were later caught and convicted.

It was the second time he’d been robbed. One evening in 1996, he and Kanta were feeding their two young children in their home behind the shop when the bell rang.

But it wasn’t a customer - a tall man, wearing a long, dark coat, threatened Patel with a knife, looking for cash and cigarettes. 

The family installed CCTV cameras and a panic button. But he continues to work 12 hour days, seven days a week.

“We just worry always,” the 50-year-old says. “Most evening times I'm here in the shop on my own... I feel unsafe, but what can you do?

“There is robbery everywhere. This happens everywhere.”

A three-minute drive away, in the suburb of Roslyn, Jayesh Patel is still too traumatised to talk about how his family were terrorised by two robberies, six months apart.

His wife Tinu was pushed to the ground and held around her neck, a machete held above her head by a man wearing a balaclava, in December 2016.

Two other men were armed with a wheel brace and a hammer, and they grabbed $400 cash from the till before being interrupted by a customer and his dog, who had heard Tinu’s screams.

An 18-year-old was later jailed for two years and 10 months after the court heard how Tinu believed she was going to die.

In May 2017, a gang of five stormed the dairy looking for cigarettes. One pointed a gun at a 17-year-old worker behind the counter, ordered him to the floor and then broke his nose.

Another 52-year-old staffer had the gun pointed at him repeatedly as the gang loaded up chocolate, cash and 175 packs of tobacco.

One of the bandits, 18, was later jailed for three years and seven months' jail. Patel told Palmerston North District Court the robbery cost him $18,000 in lost stock and damaged equipment.

He’d begun working 13 hours, every day of the week, so none of his employees would ever be left alone.

“It affected my family a lot,” the father of 10-year-old twin boys says.  “It's happening everywhere. So, no-one is safe right now, you know?

“They just want to get money. And this is the kind of convenience store [that] is an easy target.”

Patel wants to see harsher minimum penalties for aggravated robbery. 

On the day Stuff visited, a prowler was spotted lurking around the shop early in the morning. 

But Patel, who has owned the store since 2006, says he has no choice but to carry on.

“We invest our capital so we have to protect that. We have no options.

“We are going to be here for a long time so we have to be mentally prepared and strong enough.”