KEY POINTS:
A 65-year-old grandfather of 10 foiled an armed robbery yesterday when he bashed the would-be bandit with a magazine stand.
John Joyce was driving past a West Auckland dairy when he saw a man dressed in dark clothes put on a mask and enter the shop.
"I just slammed on the brakes and ran in," said Mr Joyce. When he entered the store, the masked man was leaning over the counter, grabbing at the till, while the female shopkeeper screamed.
"I bellowed ... 'What do you think you're doing?'"
When the man turned Mr Joyce realised he was holding a pocket knife." He lunged at me three times, and that's when I grabbed the Trade and Exchange stand and whacked him with all my might."
The masked man was thrown into a drinks fridge, but then slipped past Mr Joyce and fled.
The New Lynn pensioner said police caught up with the fugitive at Kelston Primary School.
The owner of the dairy on Great North Rd, New Lynn, did not want to be identified, but she paid tribute to Mr Joyce who "came in and saved us".
On Thursday, a man armed with a shotgun was disarmed by customers in Flaxmere Liquor in Hastings.
A Hastings police spokesman said members of the public should not take on offenders who wielded any sort of weapon.
