KEY POINTS:
A Wanganui dairy operator is getting out after being assaulted once and robbed twice within five months of moving to the riverside city.
Minesh Patel, operator of the Rangitikei Street Dairy, yesterday said he feared for the safety of his wife and children if he stayed in Wanganui.
On Tuesday night, minutes before closing his store, Mr Patel was attacked with what he believed was hammer.
"I was filling up the stock when two guys ran in behind me and grabbed me," he told the Wanganui Chronicle.
"They came in here with a hammer, I think, and hit me in the back of the head."
His attackers fled with tobacco and cigarettes
Mr Patel's terrified wife and two young children watched the attack on a CCTV camera from the dairy's locked store room.
Mr Patel was taken to hospital but discharged that night.
In an earlier robbery Mr Patel was threatened, and tobacco stolen.
Mr Patel said his wife had told him she did not want to stay in Wanganui a moment longer so he planned to leave as soon as possible and return to Lower Hutt from where he moved last year.
"I only got here about five months ago, but I am going to leave, especially with my wife and kids."
Police said inquiries into the latest robbery were "progressing".
- NZPA
