Holiday incident terrifies family

A family's holiday became a nightmare when a group of violent youths laid siege to their rental bach, demanding money and threatening to kill them.

The incident happened late at night in Papamoa after the family spent a leisurely day in the beach town, where they stayed two streets from the sea.

The Auckland family, originally from South Africa, said it was worse than anything they had experienced in the country they left out of concern for its rising crime rate.

Still shaken from their ordeal, they asked the Herald not to name them as they feared more trouble.

Nine members of the extended family - six children aged 13 to 19 and three adults - were relaxing at the bach they had rented for a week when there was a knock at the door about 10.30pm.

The children had been to a nearby dairy, where they were heckled by three young men who followed them home.

The father opened the door to face a menacing young man with a drink bottle in his hand and two younger boys, about 15 and 12, with hands behind their backs as if they carried weapons.

"I just saw a big fellow in front of me, and then the other two. I knew this was serious. I thought, 'How do we get out of this one?"' he said.

"It was all going through my mind: this guy will strike out. They were in that frame of mind that nobody could stop them.

"They shouted nonsense about being sent by 'Uncle Raymond' to collect drug money.

"They were drunk and looking for money. I was standing there just to protect my family, but I was really shaken."

When one of them charged inside, his daughters rushed to a back room to call police.

A 20-year-old appeared in the Tauranga District Court yesterday on two charges related to the incident and was remanded on bail until next month. A teenager, 15, was referred to Youth Aid.