KEY POINTS:
Two young muggers clearly thought three 60-somethings with an old lady in a wheelchair, sedately strolling home from a Hamilton restaurant one balmy weekday night, were easy pickings.
But the two 13-year-old boys who made off with Kathleen Rose's handbag in a cycle-by swipe last Tuesday had a surprise in store. It turned out two of the party - Maureen Richards and her husband Kevin Richards - were ex-police officers.
And the wheelchair-bound 88-year-old Nelly Bell happened to be mother to retired top detective and Police Ten 7 host Graham Bell.
Maureen's sister Kathleen Rose had been leaning down to give their mother, Bell, a biscotti when her bag was wrenched from her shoulder. The couple gave chase, Richards flinging her own handbag back to Rose so she could use her cellphone to call 111.
"Stop them, stop them!" the chasers shouted to passing cars as Rose stumbled out directions to the emergency line operator.
A white van did a U-turn and joined the pursuit, cutting off the boys around the corner.
Mistake number two: in the van were nine prison officers, on their way back to Auckland from a call-out.
They climbed out and surrounded the boys just as a police car pulled up and the Richards closed in. Game over.
"It was surreal," says Rose. Anger came later, when she thought what might have happened to her mother, who is frail. But Bell was unscathed.
"I was a bit shaky for a while after - you would be, wouldn't you? It all happened so suddenly. They were pretty brave robbers when they took on two ex-policemen.
"It was quite funny, really. The whole thing just fell into a plot."
