Axe-wielding robbers smash way into dairy

Police are hunting two robbers who tried to smashed their way into the private quarters of a Zimbabwean dairy owner yesterday the latest in a spate of dairy raids in Christchurch's eastern suburbs.

The two men, one armed with a large axe and the other with a claw hammer, entered the Lettuce Inn Dairy in suburban Bromley demanding cigarettes yesterday afternoon.

Hitesh Patel was watching cricket in his lounge at the back of his dairy with his wife and her parents, who are visiting from Zimbabwe, when the men entered the shop.

"My wife went to serve and my mother-in-law followed. I think she had bread with her to feed the ducks. Then I heard screaming," he told the Press.

Mr Patel ran to the front of the dairy after phoning police.

"The guy with the axe jumped over the counter. Luckily my wife was slightly away from the till. One came around and tried to chase my mother-in-law.

"Then I saw a guy with an axe going at the door. I was worried for my wife and mother-in-law. I was thinking they looked very, very rough. They were quite big guys."

Mr Patel's father-in-law Amrat Lalloo, his wife and daughter escaped down the passage and held the door connecting the shop and the house shut before the robber started hacking through it with his axe.

"It's got to be something quite sharp to penetrate through that double door," Mr Lalloo said.

The men fled in a mid-blue Ford Escort panel van which had grey primer on the front.

- NZPA