Robber insists on guilty plea

File photo / Martin Sykes

Anthony Daniel Jossy Grace absolutely insisted from the dock that he had robbed a Papanui fish and chip shop two years ago.

The case was due to go to a hearing in the Christchurch District Court next week, Christchurch Court News website reported.

Grace's insistence at a remand appearance before Judge Michael Crosbie even took his own defence counsel by surprise.

The judge delayed the case for counsel Bridget Ayrey to get formal instructions and then the charge was read in court and the heavily tattooed unemployed 30-year-old pleaded guilty to armed robbery.

Grace admitted robbing two people of $200 cash while accompanied by an unknown offender and while armed with a weapon.

Judge Crosbie remanded Grace in custody to October 29 for sentence in a case where the police say the fish and chip shop owners fought back.

They say Grace was drinking with a group at a friend's address in Papanui on September 24, 2008. The group was also consuming cannabis and rivitrol pills.

About 8.10pm Grace and an associate went to the fish and chip shop, owned by two brothers aged 26.

The robbers disguised their faces with bandanas before they burst through the shop's front door carrying a baseball bat.

The brothers ran out the rear door and one got a piece of metal pipe from a vehicle and ran around to the front of the shop.

When he arrived, one of the robbers was carrying the cash register and struggling to get into the passenger door of a parked vehicle.

"The offender had a crowbar and knife in one of his hands, and the cash register in the other hand," said the police.

The shop owner ran up and smashed the rear and side windows of the car with the pipe.

Both robbers got out of the car and the owner retreated but saw his brother throw a tyre iron at the robber on the driver's side.

The robbers then made their getaway along Harewood Road and the car was found abandoned in Langdons Road, Papanui, the next day. It was about four houses away from where the group had been drinking.

- NZPA