'Waste of time': Dairy owner faces 13yo ram-raider at family group conference

• Author: Tina Grumball
• Published date: 30 September 2022
• Publication title: Otago Daily Times: Web Edition Articles (New Zealand)

The meeting involved one of the teens - a 13-year-old - his family, Oranga Tamariki, police and four other victims, including another dairy owner

* Prebbleton Dairy targeted by thieves for third time

* Camera shop, convenience store hit by ram-raiders

* Chch dairy ram-raid

Facilitated by Oranga Tamariki, youth justice family group conferences are intended to help youth take responsibility and leave them with a plan for the future.

While the victims could speak at the meeting, Sangeet Mehta said the decision had already been made as to what would happen with the youth.

The victim's views did not make a difference. He was also left wondering what police were waiting for as the teen had about 44 charges.

"Still our law and order says we have to give him a chance to be a better person. Within six months, 44 crimes he (committed), so why are you waiting for the 45th?"

Mehta had a simple answer: "If you do the crime, you need to face it and that's what I told the boy."

The youths would not stop while they believed "no one can touch (them)," Mehta said.

Mehta's business, the Prebbleton Dairy, has been ram-raided three times and been the target of an armed robbery.

The robbery happened in late August when teenagers - the youngest identified as just 10 - burst into the shop armed with a spanner about 7pm.

They tried to strike his wife but she avoided the blows by pushing a COVID screen at the offenders.

Their toddler was in the back of the shop and Mehta was visiting a patient at Christchurch Hospital at the time.

When Mehta asked for a trespass notice for the four offenders police had identified he was told the notices had been given.

But when he asked for photographs of the boys so he would know who to stop, police would not give them to him.

The offenders had been...