A six-year-old's bravery was caught on CCTV footage as she attempted to stop an axe-wielding intruder attacking her family’s store in Auckland.
Sarah Patel was briefly caught up in the middle of a violent robbery at her parent’s electronics shop in North Shore where she held on to the leg of one of the alleged robbers in an attempt to stop him from attacking an employee.
On September 5, five men barged into the Expert Infotech store in Glenfield.
“They started breaking the cabinets, and one of them even ran behind my staff and tried to hit him,” Patel says.
Patel’s daughter usually finishes school at 3 p.m. and then heads home. But on Monday, after her grandfather picked her up from school, they made their way to the store.
“She was here only for five to 10 minutes, and she was right next to me when the attackers came,” says Patel. “I asked her to come outside with me.”
Patel says that in the chaos, he didn’t realise that his daughter fell on the floor and was left behind. He went outside the store and called the police.
“I realised she wasn’t with me when I was out of the store. But to my relief, she came out with her grandfather in a matter of minutes.”
But in those few minutes, Patel didn’t realise that his daughter attempted to stop a robber from attacking an employee.
Patel says that he is proud of Sarah's ability to remain calm through the entire episode. “At night, when I asked her what she meant to do earlier that day, she replied that she thought the attacker was a monster," says Patel.
"She was merely trying to save my employee. But when she saw an axe in the attacker’s hand, she got scared and she ran out of the room.”
The police pursued the group of attackers and finally caught five out of the six teenagers in West Auckland. The sixth offender is still absconding.
However, Patel’s wife later received a call from Auckland District Court informing that one of the five captured had escaped custody. “Now, they have captured four; one is still absconding, and one escaped,” says Patel.