Japan Mart manager assaulted by teenagers in Lower Hutt

A Lower Hutt grocery store manager says she’s traumatised after being beaten by a group of teenage girls.

Her husband David Hoffman said his wife, who is the manager at Japan Mart, took pride in her store, and “loves her job”.

Police are investigating and would like to hear from anyone with information or CCTV footage.

She gave a statement to police on Monday, explaining four girls entered the Japanese grocery store on High Street about 3.45pm on Saturday.

She estimated they were between the ages of 15 to 18, and told police one of them called her a “f***ing bitch” and the other three were knocking products onto the floor.

The manager said she asked them to leave, but she followed them, thinking it would help to be able to point them out to police.

Outside the store, one of the teens squirted water from a pump bottle at her, wetting the woman’s clothing, she said.

Another began filming her, with her phone very close to the woman’s face, and she told police later she felt intimidated and worried about her privacy, so she pushed the phone away with her hand.

As she continued following them, one of the teens yanked on her hair, she said. She called back to a colleague to make sure the police had been called.

She followed the group into an alleyway where she said they attacked her, kicking and punching her head, she said.

She believed she briefly lost consciousness, but thinking the police were on their way, she eventually kept following the group.

When they were joined by three boys she said she felt very threatened and returned to the store.

She was later taken to hospital to be checked over, and was treated for minor injuries.

Hoffman said his wife was still recovering and happy for him to speak on her behalf.

He was disappointed police hadn’t responded in time to prevent the assault.

“I suppose they had probably treated it like a standard shoplifting incident, rather than the aggravated assault that it was,” he said.

“The whole expectation is that when you call up the police when someone is being violent, is that they come straight away, and when the police station is only two blocks away… in my opinion, that’s not good enough.”

Police told RNZ they were only notified of the alleged assault after the fact – about 4.30pm – “following a retail crime incident”.

Hutt Valley Area Commander Inspector Wade Jennings said it was reported that a person had been assaulted by a small group of people.

“As the report was made to police after the fact and not currently ongoing, the next available unit was tasked to visit the victim to follow up on the report.”

Then, about 7.20pm, police were advised by ambulance that the victim was being taken to hospital to be checked over.

Police spoke to the victim, who had sustained minor injuries, at the hospital.

Police were making enquires and would like to speak to anyone with information or CCTV footage in or around Queens Arcade from 4pm to 4.30pm on Saturday.

Hoffman said Japan Mart had been very supportive with a representative flying down from Auckland to visit his wife.

But retail crime was an ongoing problem, he said.

“We get shoplifting events at the store all the time,” he said.

The store now kept Wagyu beef in the back and people had to ask for it at the counter.

He said they’d even had people go into the back room and take staff members’ cellphones.

After posting about the assault on social media, Hoffman said they had received a lot of support from the community.

But his wife would be off work for the foreseeable future while she recovered.

“Trauma’s going to be there for a while,” he said.

Taka Hashizume, a spokesperson for Japan Mart, said they were “extremely outraged” by the incident.

“We always strive to provide the best possible service to our customers, and our staff carry out their work every day with both responsibility and pride.

“However, in recent years, shoplifting by parents and children together, abusive language, and discriminatory remarks have been happening in our stores on a daily basis, and this assault was the worst of all.”

He said there was little they could do to increase safety measures, “other than speaking up or reporting evidence through CCTV”.

“With such limited means, the number of offenders does not decrease at all; instead, offenders treating it like a game, or shoplifting without any sense of wrongdoing.”

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