Victim recounts skateboard attack

Jason Frazer fled to the police station and had to press the night buzzer outside to get help.

A man bleeding from the head after being bashed with a skateboard in an early morning robbery had to wait outside Napier Police Station after going for help and finding the station closed.

Jason Frazer, 39, was robbed in Napier about 4am last Thursday - smashed six times over the head and robbed of a cellphone, about $200 cash and other property less than 500 metres from the station he had passed on his walk home a short while earlier.

Unable to find help in the empty streets, he fled to the police station and had to press the night buzzer outside to get help.

"It was answered in Wellington," he said.

Fortunately a patrol car and an ambulance were soon on the scene. It seemed a long time, but he conceded it probably was not more than 10 minutes.

The police national media centre was late yesterday unable to clarify what time the alarm was raised and when the first officer arrived to meet the waiting victim.

It was, however, fortunate that after 36 hours in hospital and still not cleared to return to work, Mr Frazer was able to remember almost everything else, with police now hoping it will lead to the finding of the two people who confronted him.

Yesterday he told Hawke's Bay Today he counted the blows as he wondered whether he would survive the attack which happened near the Raffles St extension entrance to the Napier Pak'n Save car park.

It was the fifth blow with the multi-coloured, white-wheeled skateboard which sent him crashing backwards and hitting his head on the pavement, as he was stripped of his white Huawei cellphone in a black leather case also holding about $200 in new $20 notes, an ANZ card, an 18+ card, an IRD card, an "old" green Work and Income card, a Countdown One Card, a Pie and Patty Pan loyalty card, a bus card ("with no credit"), a Napier RSA membership card, and a Napier library card.

He remembered them all - "in order" - and he remembers the attacker claimed to have a knife, that he needed the money because his girlfriend was pregnant, and that the second man did not take part in the assault and seemed a reluctant accomplice.

Mr Frazer, who had been walking home after a pay-night with workmates at a Hastings St bar, says the second man did not hit him, despite the urgings of the attacker.

He also remembers his escape, running along the front of the closed supermarket and kicking at doors trying to attract the attention of night staff, before heading to the police station.

The two men, both dressed in black and carrying skateboards, were thought to be aged late teens to mid-20s and were similar in height to Mr Frazer - about 170cm (5ft 7in), and, conceding not everyone is in town with a skateboard at 4am, Detective Sergeant Darren Pritchard said others will know who they are.

It was one of several robberies in Hawke's Bay in recent weeks, including an attempt early on Friday night at the Te Awa Dairy, but Mr Pritchard said it is possible there had been similar incidents that had not been reported.

"Anyone who knows anything of these incidents, or anything that could be linked, should contact the police," he said.

- If you have any information, please contact the police by phoning 831 0700 or anonymously through Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.