Heroic Beach Haven dairy owner foils robbery with hockey stick

A heroic Beach Haven man foiled a robbery by confronting four masked men who broke into his family’s dairy Saturday night.

After taking a look at Manav Prasad, a 110kg, 21-year-old rugby player, weightlifter and former boxer, the would-be bandits fled.

Prasad was closing the Kauri Park Superette with his 20-year-old sister at around 7.35pm. M. When the intruders entered.

“At first I thought they were some last minute customers, but when one of them walked up to the counter with an empty bag, I knew I had to act,” Prasad said.

“I just grabbed a hockey stick that we had for safety and started yelling at them to get out of the store and leave us alone.”

Prasad appeared to have scared would-be thieves with his 110kg, 1.87m body.

“My heart was beating at 100 beats per second and I knew it was a life or death situation. My sister was in the back, and my first thought was that I had to protect her,” he said.

“I didn’t know if any of them had weapons, but I had so much adrenaline coming out of nowhere and I didn’t care.”

Prasad said his family had owned the Rangatira Rd dairy for about six years and had experienced several attacks, including some raids in which cash and cigarettes were stolen.

However, he said that this was the first time he had attacked himself in this way.

Prasad called the police last night after the incident and said he would make a police statement this morning.

“Now that it’s all over, it looks pretty funny. But it was also pretty scary. I was scared the whole time, but I had to cope,” Prasad said.

“I spent the whole night thinking about how things could have been different if they had gotten my sister or something.”

Prasad, a former security guard, said it had not been a good year financially for the family business and that he did not want it to face further losses.

A police spokeswoman said police had received a report of a robbery at a store on Rangatira Rd last night.

“Four teenagers were reported to have entered the store and tried to take items. No items were taken,” he said.

Police were following the informant this morning, he said.