Gunman disarmed

Press, 6 February 1982, Page 3

Gunman disarmed

PA Whangarei A woman grappled with an armed man in her shop late on Thursday, and took a loaded shotgun from him. Mrs Margaret McQueen, aged 37, yesterday described how a man walked into the Pukenui Dairy, near Houhora, at 4.50 p.m. threatened her and some customers with a shotgun, and demanded ammunition. Instead, the mother of four children hit him with a steel container, and wrestled the gun from him. “I got a big fright all right. I was worried about the children," she said. “It could

have been worse. It could have been at night. This has never happened before and I don’t want it to happen again.” The local milkman, Mr Tony Broad, who went to help Mrs McQueen, was hit in the face and needed stitches in the wound. Mrs McQueen’s husband, Laurence, who was in the next shop at the time of the attack, praised his wife’s action. “There were four or five customers in the shop at the time. They were all told to stay where they were but some ran out the back door

and told me. My wife was fighting with the man and hit him with a steel ice cream scoop container. “She took the gun off him and passed it to David, one of the children. He passed it to one of the others and they rushed outside and hid it.” He said his wife was unhurt but shaken by her ordeal. The Kaitaia police said yesterday a man had been arrested late on Thursday and charged with possession of a shotgun without lawful purpose.