A crackdown on the country's water supplies is put in place, victims from yesterday's dairy attack remain in hospital and Ruapehu National Park is one step closer to getting a name change.
Video / NZ Herald
He is charged with two counts of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm and one count of resisting police.
Prosecutor Sam Papp told an Auckland District Court hearing on the matter that police wanted media to publish the fact that police had opposed granting him electronic bail earlier this year for another matter.
Papp said he had taken off his EM bracelet prior to the incident.
Judge Kevin Glubb granted the man interim name suppression and remanded him in custody until his next appearance.
“A number of people intervened and managed to apprehend and restrain the alleged offender until police arrived and took him into custody,” he said.
Police assist a woman after a stabbing at a New Windsor dairy in Auckland. Photo / Hayden Woodward
Police yesterday spent the day at the scene, cordoning off the block of shops on the corner of Maioro St and New Windsor Rd.
Dairy and Business Owners’ Group chairman Sunny Kaushal yesterday said news of the attack was “heartbreaking”.
“We have already had deaths in our industry, and we were fearing more violence because the Government is failing to take any action. New Zealanders are sick and tired of the lawlessness.”
Prime Minister and Labour leader Chris Hipkins said the attack was “utterly unacceptable”.
“People should be safe in their businesses. I’m going to back the police completely ... and where necessary, we are changing the law to be able to give the police more tools to do that,” Hipkins said.
Police and Justice Minister Ginny Andersen called the attack a “completely abhorrent act of violence”.
“My thoughts are with the victims and their family,” Andersen said. “This is something that no New Zealander should have to experience.”
The attack left Prema with a punctured lung and nerve damage in his left arm.
He spoke to the Herald from his hospital bed, saying he thought he would have died had he not run out of the shop after being slashed from across the counter.
“I’m pretty lucky to be alive,” he said at the time.
The father of three said: “At the end of the day, you just carry on - that’s our work, that’s our business.”
His wife, Damyanti Prema, who had been robbed at gunpoint in the past, said she initially wondered whether it was worth keeping the business after the previous attack in 2008.
But, like her husband, she said she would not let anyone victimise her again by selling up or living in fear.
