Christmas mayhem: Attacker admits raft of charges

Nigel Dixon crashed a stolen car after a police chase through the Bay of Plenty on Boxing Day. Photo/File

A Rotorua man who assaulted a dairy owner on Christmas Day and then led police on a high-speed car chase the following day has admitted a raft of charges against him.

Nigel Caleb Dixon, 27, of Fairy Springs, pleaded guilty in the Rotorua District Court yesterday to 14 charges, including dishonestly taking a Subaru, assault with a steel extendable baton in an attempt to rob Hillcrest Dairy, stealing petrol from Fairy Springs Z Energy and Whakatane Caltex service stations, entering a building on State Highway 30, Rotoiti, without authority with intent to commit a crime, operating a motor vehicle on State Highway 30 recklessly and assaulting a police officer using a vehicle as a weapon.

Those offences all occurred between Christmas Eve and Boxing Day 2013.

He also admitted two charges of assaulting a prison officer and one each of wilful damage, disorderly behaviour, resisting police, theft of a motor vehicle and failing to answer bail - all between December and April.

The female Hillcrest Dairy owner was shaken and treated by ambulance staff for minor injuries after she was attacked by Dixon on Christmas morning.

The woman's husband told the Rotorua Daily Post at the time that a man had entered the store, where she was working alone, and asked for "money and rollies" before jumping the counter and swinging an extendable baton at her.

The next day, police used a helicopter, road spikes and multiple vehicles in pursuit of Dixon, who had driven a stolen car from Rotorua to Whakatane via Paengaroa, back through Edgecumbe before crashing near Lake Rotoma.

Dixon appeared in a story in the Rotorua Daily Post in October 2012, talking about how he had turned his life of crime around and wanted to help police by working with young people.

In the article he said he had been paranoid schizophrenic but had "conquered that" and was no longer on medication.

Judge Phillip Cooper remanded Dixon in custody. He will return to the Henry Bennett Centre, a mental health facility in Hamilton where he had been prior to yesterday's appearance. He will be sentenced on July 14.