Tackle fells armed robber

Press, 27 September 1988, Page 1

Tackle fells armed robber

By

GLENIS CARROLL

A Christchurch dairy owner yesterday rugbytackled one of two armed robbers after being told to lie on tbe floor to be tied up. Mr Bob Gunning, of Eve’s Dairy in Ferry Road, leaped up from a crouch to tackle one of the masked men, pushing him back into the other, who was armed with a single-barrel sawn-off shot-gun. A shot was fired which blew out a window. The robbers fled from the dairy empty handed. Mr Gunning, aged 51, said he "didn’t like the idea of being tied up.” “Once they’ve got you tied up they can do anything to you. I thought of my wife and decided I may as well move first.” The men, who were both wearing black balaclavas, entered the living area of the dairy through a latched window about 4 a.m. yesterday. Mr Gunning was asleep in bed and his wife, Mrs Laurel Gunning,who had worked the late shift in the shop, was reading in the lounge. “I was completely dead to it until I was woken by a man pointing a gun at my head telling me to get up. When all you can see is the barrel of a shot-gun you wake up pretty fast,” Mr Gunning said. He pulled on a dressing gown and joined his wife, who was being held by another armed man. The men demanded money and Mr Gunning told them where the safe was. “I didn’t know where the money was because my wife had closed up. They brought the safe in, which wasn’t bolted down because it’s just new, and it was empty,” he said. The men began to get angry and ordered Mr Gunning to get down on the floor. As he bent down in a crouch one of the men walked towards him, blocking the other armed offender. “I saw my chance and decided to go for it, so I leaped up and tackled him,” Mr Gunning said. The man he tackled fell on to the other, who stumbled. The shot-gun went off. “I didn’t even hear the shot. I felt the man swing the gun back, clipping me on the shoulder, and then they panicked and took off.” Mr Gunning said he did not realise until later that the man he had tackled had probably been armed. “I could see him carrying a broom handle I use as a painting stick but I couldn’t see any gun. There was no doubt though both of the men were armed so he must have jammed his gun into his trousers,” he said. Yesterday, Mr Gunning said he was still “running on nervous energy” and felt more frightened about the events looking back on them. “It was frightening but' I didn’t really think about it at the time. I guess I can get a bit bad tempered, myself,” he said.