New Windsor Dairy stabbing: Man charged was on electronic bail

The 24-year-old facing multiple charges after two people were stabbed in an Auckland dairy yesterday was on electronic bail at the time.

He is charged with two counts of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm and one count of resisting police.

Prosecutor Sam Papp told an Auckland District Court hearing on the matter that police wanted media to publish the fact that police had opposed granting him electronic bail earlier this year for another matter.

Papp said he had taken off his EM bracelet prior to the incident.

Judge Kevin Glubb granted the man interim name suppression and remanded him in custody until his next appearance.

A man and a woman were stabbed in the attack at the New Windsor Dairy and Lotto shop on New Windsor Rd at 10.41am.

The man is still in hospital in a serious condition. The woman has been released from hospital.

Detective Inspector Glenn Baldwin said members of the public helped arrest the man.

“A number of people intervened and managed to apprehend and restrain the alleged offender until police arrived and took him into custody,” he said.

Police yesterday spent the day at the scene, cordoning off the block of shops on the corner of Maioro St and New Windsor Rd.

Dairy and Business Owners’ Group chairman Sunny Kaushal yesterday said news of the attack was “heartbreaking”.

“We have already had deaths in our industry, and we were fearing more violence because the Government is failing to take any action. New Zealanders are sick and tired of the lawlessness.”

Prime Minister and Labour leader Chris Hipkins said the attack was “utterly unacceptable”.

“People should be safe in their businesses. I’m going to back the police completely ... and where necessary, we are changing the law to be able to give the police more tools to do that,” Hipkins said.

Police and Justice Minister Ginny Andersen called the attack a “completely abhorrent act of violence”.

“My thoughts are with the victims and their family,” Andersen said. “This is something that no New Zealander should have to experience.”

The New Windsor dairy and Lotto shop was the target of another attack in 2008 when a teenage boy allegedly stormed inside and stabbed the owner.

Shopkeeper Shashikant Prema was taken to Auckland City Hospital with stab wounds to his neck and back.

The attack left Prema with a punctured lung and nerve damage in his left arm.

He spoke to the Herald from his hospital bed, saying he thought he would have died had he not run out of the shop after being slashed from across the counter.

“I’m pretty lucky to be alive,” he said at the time.

The father of three said: “At the end of the day, you just carry on - that’s our work, that’s our business.”

His wife, Damyanti Prema, who had been robbed at gunpoint in the past, said she initially wondered whether it was worth keeping the business after the previous attack in 2008.

But, like her husband, she said she would not let anyone victimise her again by selling up or living in fear.

“You are in fear, but you have to get over it,” she said at the time.

Police say there will be an increased presence in New Windsor in the coming days to reassure the community.