Dairy owners living in fear

Milesh Kumar, who owns Sunset Pricecutter Superette, says more needs to be done to make dairy owners feel safe. Photo/Stephen Parker

Rotorua dairy owners say they no longer feel safe and want harsher penalties for those who violently rob their stores, threaten and attack them.

The calls come after a dairy worker was brutally stabbed to death during a robbery in Auckland yesterday morning.

They also follow two recent aggravated robberies in Rotorua. The first occurred on May 24 at Jerams' Superette on Te Ngae Rd, with St Andrews Superette in Springfield robbed just 24 hours later.

Jerams' Superette owner Parbhu Jeram said he didn't feel safe at work following the robbery, in which he was threatened with an axe.

"After the robbery, I struggled to sleep, I'm still trying to get back into a normal routine now.

"Every day when I go to work, I don't feel safe. I fear for my safety and the safety of my family," he said.

The recent incident wasn't the first time Mr Jeram's store had been the target of such a crime over the more than 30 years he's run the store.

In 1990, a man hit him in the head multiple times with a hammer while robbing the shop, leaving Mr Jeram with severe head injuries.

Mr Jeram has had enough, and is calling for urgent action to help better protect dairy owners like himself.

He's not alone. All of the 10 local dairy owners the Rotorua Daily Post contacted said they didn't feel safe at work and wanted to see more done to protect them and their staff.

Milesh Kumar, who owns Sunset Pricecutter Superette, said harsher penalties needed to be handed out to those who robbed dairies.

"It's quite worrying. You always ask yourself, 'will I be next?', 'will it happen today?'. You pray and hope that it won't happen. But we shouldn't have to do that," he said.

"These people [the offenders] need to be given harsher penalties. Three months' home detention, that's nothing in comparison to what their victims have to go through."

Mr Kumar said the offenders needed to be made an example of to deter potential criminals.

Another local dairy owner, who did not want to be named, said he ensured two staff members were working in front of the shop at all times in a bid to deter raiders.

The policy still wasn't enough to make him feel safe, he said.

Rotorua police head of CIB Detective Senior Sergeant Zane Smith said aggravated robbery was a serious offence, and urged shop owners and members of the public to immediately report any suspicious behaviour to police.