Flowers have been laid this morning outside the couple’s New Windsor Dairy and Lotto shop after they were badly hurt at 10.41am yesterday.
Nearby community members say they are “shocked and saddened” and feeling unsafe, while members of the family aren’t yet ready to talk about the attack.
The man remains seriously injured in hospital; his wife has been released from medical care.
A 24-year-old man, arrested at the scene on New Windsor Rd, appeared in court today charged with two counts of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm and one of resisting arrest.
Despite installing fog cannons and other security, the dairy owner had been “scared all the time” because of a rise in crime, said the neighbour, who didn’t wish to be named.
“He always had this fear he would get into this problem sometime because he had kids and gangsters approaching in that manner often.
The attack was still “unbelievable”, the neighbour said.
“To happen to him is unbelievable because he’s a very calm, soft-spoken guy, and he would probably give away [a shop item] rather than going into trouble [over it].”
Police assist a woman after a stabbing at the New Windsor dairy. Photo / Hayden Woodward
The neighbour said he and his father had become good friends with the dairy owners, initially going to shop, but often staying for chats.
The owners were well-known and respected members of the Indian and wider community and engaged with the New Windsor School next door, he said.
The couple bought the shop a few years ago from previous owners Shashikant and Damyanti Prema, who were also robbed and attacked in it, the neighbour said.
Shashikant told the Herald in 2008 he was lucky to be alive after being slashed with a knife that left him with nerve damage and a punctured lung.
The rise in crime since then had left the neighbourhood feeling unsafe, said the neighbour, who has lived in the area for 27 years.
He has now sent his daughter to school in a different suburb and is looking to move out of the area.
Three weeks ago, he was woken at 2am by screams and a fight in front of his house.
Police swarmed the area before paramedics had to pick an unconscious man off the street, he said.
The timing of yesterday’s dairy attack made it scary because anyone could have been there to witness it, he said, including children from New Windsor School.
A nearby shop owner said he was working in his store at the time of yesterday’s attack. He rushed outside to see the female owner of the dairy asking for help.
While calling 911, he saw two members of the public inside the dairy.
Detective Inspector Glenn Baldwin earlier said members of the public had stepped in to help arrest the man now facing charges.
“A number of people intervened and managed to apprehend and restrain the alleged offender until police arrived and took him into custody,” Baldwin said.
After that, the woman was taken into his store, where paramedics treated her for a hand injury.
Her husband was taken away on a stretcher.
The shop owner said he had opened his store only last week.
While he was renovating it, the dairy owners had been super-helpful, telling tradesmen they could use the dairy’s power points if needed.
The New Windsor Dairy and Lotto shop was closed today but flowers had been left by the entrance. Photo / Ben Leahy
The shop owner said he had planned to keep his new store open each day until later at night. But after the attack, he now didn’t think it was safe for his staff.
Like others the Herald spoke to, he called on politicians to do more to protect shop owners.
Another man, who had grown up in the area over the past 20 years, said the neighbourhood had changed.
To see dairy owners having to barricade themselves behind cages did not feel like the New Zealand he grew up in, he said.
He also worried for his own and his family’s safety.
He visited the dairy with his children from time to time and knew the owners, he said.
He wondered what witnessing an incident like that could do to his kids’ mental health or whether he would have had to step in and try to help the owners if he had been there.
“By doing that, we could get hurt as well, just like wrong time, wrong place – it feels unsafe,” he said.
The 24-year-old 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.
