Jeweller's rage at armed raid

By WAYNE THOMPSON

An angry jeweller threw a chair at two fleeing robbers yesterday after being held up at gunpoint in a dramatic robbery in downtown Auckland.

Clive Lowery threw an office chair hoping to trip the hooded men, armed with a gun and a tomahawk, as they ran out of the shop with more than $50,000 worth of Rolex watches.

At 1.30 pm, two men, their faces hidden by sweat shirts, stormed into Mansor's Jewellers in the BNZ Tower shopping centre in Queen St.

The ground floor shop was just a few metres away from crowds of shoppers and lunching office workers.

Mr Lowery would not talk to reporters.

But the store owner, David Mansor, said he and his father, Dennis, were in their office on the mezzanine floor when a security camera alerted them to what was happening below.

"I came down and the shotgun was pointed at me.

"But my dad was trying to rush down the stairs, because he's the old, game sort who says it would not matter if he got shot. "So I ran up the stairs to stop him coming down.

"I told him to phone 111."

The second robber used a tomahawk to smash open a glass window display case containing the Rolex watches.

No customers were in the store at the time and no one was harmed, David Mansor said.

Detective Sergeant Julian Rinckes said the robbers ran up the Swanson St walkway and then drove up Albert St in a 1989 white Mazda Familia with the registration number ST3482.

The offenders are described as Maori or Pacific Islanders and in their 20s.

Police believe the Mazda could have been parked on the corner of Swanson St and Mills Lane for some time before the robbery.

No shots were fired.

Staff of neighbouring shops said they could hear the robbers yelling and saw the gun.

A shop owner, who did not want to be named, said: "It was scary."

She heard one of the robbers shouting: "We will blow your head off. Stay where you are.

"The smaller man jumped over the counter and scooped up watches."

"My customer told me to keep down and away from my door."

A customer in a store only 5m opposite the jewellers said she saw Mr Lowery hold up an office chair in front of himself as if for protection.

"But he then threw the chair at one of them."