Dairy robbers bash passer-by unconcious

Photo / Otago Daily Times

Two balaclava-clad men brutally kicked a man unconscious early yesterday, then robbed a dairy at gunpoint.

The men attacked three people before demanding cash from the staff member.

One of the victims - a woman forced to the ground at gunpoint - said she did not feel she was in danger, but was not willing to "karate-chop the guy or anything just to see".

The robbers - one armed with a gun and the other a knife - struck at a dairy in Dunedin about 12.30am.

A member of the public was kicked unconscious and left lying on the ground outside the Regent Rd store before the attackers went inside and demanded cash from the sole staff member.

The staff member was kicked and punched and a small amount of money and some cigarettes were stolen.

A newspaper delivery woman said she stepped from her vehicle and came face-to-face with a man in a balaclava who pointed a gun at her, verbally abused her and ordered her to get on the ground and not look at him.

She complied and lay down, and the man left in a car.

'It was surreal," she said later in the day, after a sleepless night. "You're like, 'Is this a joke?' You just don't expect that in little old Dunedin."

- Otago Daily Times