Shop Assistants Beaten, Robbed

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31598, 8 February 1968, Page 22

Shop Assistants Beaten, Robbed

(New Zealand Press Association)

AUCKLAND, February 7.

Four of seven young men who entered a men’s-wear shop in Lome Street, Auckland, yesterday afternoon attacked two 18-year-old assistants and made off with $7 in cash, a watch and clothing, the value of which is not yet known.

“They came into the shop and looked around, as if they were interested in buying some clothes,” said Mr David Brown, one of the assistants. “Then three went outside and one of the other four asked me to get him a shirt. ‘1 reached up to get it off the top shelf and then two of them hit me from behind. The next thing I remembered was lying on the floor in a pool of blood while the men ransacked the place. They must have hit me in the eye, and on my jaw. The blood came from my nose. One of them broke it.”

Mr Chris Dawson, who began work in the shop on Monday, was bashed at the same time. “I was at the counter and one them asked me to change some money,” he said. “I put my hands into my pockets and he hit me on the side

of the head. “I was dazed for a minute, but I remember them taking some trousers. The three outside must have been keeping watch. They shut the doors of the shop. We were shoved into a corner and one of them said that if we moved they would break our jaws.” Mr Brown said the men ripped out the telephone and one threatened them with a belt buckle while the others ran away with the clothing. The shop is in an alley and there was nobody there to see them.

One man took Mr Brown’s watch.

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