Two a penny

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A bank customer is being praised by Hamilton police after he responded to a call for help and chased a robber today.

Police said the robber, believed to be unarmed, demanded money from a teller in the Hamilton East branch of the BNZ about 10.

As the robber fled with his money, the teller called for help and a man in a queue behind the robber chased him. .

Detective Dion Bennett said it was a gutsy call by the customer.

He pursued the robber down Grey St but lost him when he turned down an alleyway to the rear of Sacred Heart school, said police.”

Mr Bennett said the customer’s first reaction was impressive.

“He realised something was wrong and turns and gives chase, it was really pleasing.”

However, he said police were also wary about urging people to chase offenders because someone could get hurt.

“We take our hat off to him.

The robber was a medium built Maori or Polynesian, between 180-185cm tall.

Details of how much money the man got were not available.

Mr Bennett said anyone with information on the robber could call him direct on (07) 834 9476. He wore a dark top and dark track pants.

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Air New Zealand today announced a normalised profit after tax of $118 million down 19 per cent on last year.

The airline said it had been hit by a rugged first half of the financial year but the second half had seen dramatic improvement.6 billion, down $58 million or 1.

Operating revenue for the year was $4.6 per cent decrease in demand.2 per cent on the same period last year, with passenger revenue down $74 million on a 7.

“Air New Zealand’s profitability against the backdrop of a global economic meltdown was underpinned by management’s decision to move rapidly ahead of competitors to reduce capacity at the first signs of waning demand and an ability to continue to invest and innovate with confidence.

“This result positions Air New Zealand as one of the top airline performers globally but it falls short of delivering shareholders an appropriate commercial return,” chairman John Palmer said.5 cents per share.”

The Board has declared a fully imputed dividend of 3.

“We will continue to invest in new products, technology and customer service, while keeping a strong focus on reducing costs and becoming even more efficient.

Chief Executive Officer Rob Fyfe said that while some certainty is provided by hedge positions relating to foreign exchange and fuel price, demand remains difficult to predict.”

“Although there are some early indicators that the slump in travel demand may be showing signs of having bottomed out, it would be naive to think that there won’t be bumps on the road to economic recovery. .

Normalised profit after tax of $118 million
Operating revenue down 1.”

Demand for air travel was stabilising, yields remain under significant pressure, fuel prices have resumed an upward trend and we are unlikely to achieve the same level of net hedging gains, Mr Fyfe said.6 billion
Passenger demand down 7.2pc to $4.6 billion, up 22pc
Final dividend of 3.6pc Net cash position $1.5 cents

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Police have launched a fresh appeal for witnesses following the brutal slaying of two young women in the Porirua suburb of Titahi Bay on Friday.

The bodies of Joeline Rangimaria Edmonds, a 21-year-old mother of two, and 16-year-old Jashana Maree Robinson were found by police in house in Morere Street about 10am on Friday.

Ms Edmonds’ two children, both under the age of two, were in the house at the time the killings.

They were called by neighbours after a heavily blood-stained man was seen running around outside the property.

A 28-year-old man, who was granted name suppression, appeared in Porirua District Court yesterday morning accused of murdering the two women and breaching a protection order in respect of Ms Edmonds.

Ms Robinson had been a boarder at Ms Edmonds’ home for less than a week.

The officer-in-charge of the investigation Detective Inspector Shane Cotter said that there had been a good response from the public for help but they still needed “key information”. .

“The public may be able to add something further to what we already know, so it’s important that we speak with them.

‘We’ve received some positive responses so far but we’re still keen to hear from anyone else who may have information,’ he said.

The bodies of the two women were removed from the house yesterday afternoon as family members said a karakia.’

Mr Cotter said he was especially interested in sightings of a male carrying a baseball bat, walking between Tawa and Titahi Bay between 6am and 10am on Friday.

Post mortems were carried out yesterday but the results were not expected for several days.

Mr Cotter said police and forensic scientists were likely to be at the house for a few more days.

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Setting a trial date for a man charged with murdering Grant “Granite” Adams has been postponed for two months as he is dying.

The case for Tauranga man Brett Michael Ashby, 50, was called in the High Court at Rotorua before Justice Judith Potter yesterday when his lawyer explained he was terminally ill.
“He is terminally ill.
Lawyer Elizabeth Hall said her client was under hospice care at home and it was likely he would not survive to stand trial and asked for a two-month stand down. . . . it is a critical situation with his declining health getting worse. If he is alive [in two months] it would be something of a surprise,” she said. .
It is believed Mr Adams was a methamphetamine user with gang connections
Mr Adams’ remains were found in June 2007 in a grave dug with a digger.
Police allege Ashby, a company director, shot Mr Adams in the upper back and head with a semi-automatic pistol before dumping his body at Wairakei, close to Taupo, in December 2005.
Another Tauranga man, Craig Cullen, 44, was sentenced to 12 months’ home detention on April 23, last year, on a charge of being an accessory after the fact of murder.
Justice Potter adjourned the case to be recalled in the High Court at Rotorua on June 4, for a trial date to be set if Ashby was still alive.
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A former ESR scientist says he found blood which could have come only from Laniet or Stephen Bain on David Bain’s socks.

Peter Cropp, now an independent forensic scientist, told the High Court in Christchurch hearing murder charges against David Bain, he had tested socks taken from David Bain on June 20, 1994, the day of the murder of the Bain family.Each had blood staining on the soles and sock one had two stains visible on the sole’s edge. He had received the socks on August 4, 1994 and labelled them sock one and sock two. Blood grouping tests showed the blood was either from Laniet or Stephen Bain. The droplets had quite clear edges and the stains had soaked right through the material suggesting the blood was more likely to have dropped onto the socks than to have adhered to the sock by stepping into blood. He gave evidence yesterday of testing he carried out in 1994 of items taken from David Bain or from the Bain house.Cropp also told the court he could find no animal blood on the rifle used to shoot the Bain family.DNA tests showed all the blood spots tested on trackpants worn by Robin Bain were his own blood, the High Court was also told.The defence case is that David Bain fingerprints alleged to have been found on the rifle were placed there before the murders by a hand with animal blood on it.Two of the spots had a mix of DNA, one of which could have had a minor contribution from another Bain family member and the other had a minor contribution from someone outside the Bain family.Dr Stephen Gutowski, from the Victorian Forensic Services Centre (VFSC), said he tested the samples taken from the trackpants in 1997 and found all the samples contained Robin Bain’s DNA. His conviction was quashed by the Privy Council in 2007.Gutowski did his testing two years after David Bain’s first trial. Bain’s counsel Michael Reed has previously told the court that if blood from other members ofthe Bain family was found on Robin it would help to exonerate his client.The defence argues David Bain’s father Robin killed his wife and three children before turning his rifle on himself. He found human blood only on one part of the rifle, the sight.Nigel Hall, another scientist from the VFSC said he tested in 1997 samples taken from 13 areas of the rifle used in the killing.

During cross-examination Reed told Hentschel, who examined many items from the Bain house in 1994, that defence experts would say his lack of notes and diagrams of the examinations he carried out would be attacked as inadequate.

Retired ESR scientist Peter Hentschel today also gave evidence in the High Court trial of Bain.

Hentschel said he had relied on police officers in charge of each section of the Bain house to take notes and his recordings were of a standard used by ESR in 1994.

They would say, Reed said, that the shortcomings meant insufficient material was available for them to do proper reviews of the examinations.

Reed concentrated much of his cross-examination today on the murder weapon, a .

It would be different now, he said.

Hentschel examined the rifle in the week of the murders and said he had not made a diagram of where he saw four fingerprints because he relied on the fingerprint expert to do that.

Hentschel examined the rifle in the week of the murders and said he had not made a diagram of where he saw four fingerprints because he relied on the fingerprint expert to do that.

The Crown alleges the fingerprints were made by David Bain while the defence says the fingerprints were made by fingers covered in animal blood.

Nor had he made notes or made a diagram of where he saw smearing on the rifle which did not extend to the fingerprints, the retired scientist said.

Hentschel maintains the smearing over the rifle was “shielded” by the fingerprints.

He could not explain how tests done in 1997 found blood smearing between the fingerprints but the rifle must have been handled many times in the intervening three years, he said.

Hentschel agreed he had not made a diagram showing where he took a sample of blood from the firearm where the fingerprints were.

The sample was taken from smearing 5mm to 10mm from the fingerprints.

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Hentschel said he had not told the jury in David Bain’s trial he had taken the sample from the fingerprints themselves. .

When re-examined by Kieran Raftery for the Crown he said he found extensive smearing of blood on the butt of the rifle and its forearm.

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One of the men accused of bashing a New Zealander to death during a brawl in a Bali nightclub is a champion boxer.

The family of 22-year-old Sean Headifen were shocked at the news last night. .
He suffered head and internal injuries and died in his hotel room about 6.
Mr Headifen, a former soldier, was allegedly attacked by 29-year-old Indonesian top- ranked middleweight boxer Andreas Seran at the Bounty Disco in Kuta early on Sunday.
Family friend Colette Drew said officials had told the family they needed to pay about $8000 to bring Mr Headifen back to Palmerston North.30am that day. “What’s going to happen to him if we can’t afford to get him home?”
Seran, along with Doni Suastika, 30, and Nengah Suastika, 34, a bartender and security staff member, are in custody. CCTV footage from the bar showed the men beating Mr Headifen and throwing bottles and glasses at him.
Police said Seran was drunk and became involved in the fight.
Miss Whitburn, 19, was due to leave Indonesia yesterday for her home town of Palmerston North.
Witnesses, including Mr Headifen’s girlfriend Sarah Whitburn, who tried to stop the brawl by jumping on the shoulders of one of the attackers, have also identified the men.
Mrs Drew said the family was feeling desperate knowing that his body was in a hospital morgue in Bali, and they wanted him brought home.
It was still unknown yesterday when the body of Mr Headifen, who served as a peacekeeper in East Timor, would return home.
“Why can’t the Government bring him home and bill us later?” she said.
“Why can’t the Government bring him home and bill us later?” she said.

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The Foreign Affairs Ministry pointed to advice on its website, which says that all costs associated with the death of a New Zealander overseas, including the repatriation of remains and the return of personal effects, were the responsibility of next-of-kin

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Tortured Kiwi sailor’s family awaits justice

By JUDITH HUGHEY Thursday, 19 February 2009

MAARTEN HOLL/
ROB HAMILL: Looks forward to ‘some sort of justice’.

KAING GUEK EAV: Ran torture centre.
Now justice is close as the first United Nations-backed trial of one of the notorious Cambodian leaders gets under way in Phnom Penh.

Thirty years ago Kiwi trans-Atlantic rower Rob Hamill's brother suffered a cruel fate, tortured to death by the brutal Khmer Rouge after his yacht blew off course. He was sailing from Singapore to Bangkok with the yacht's co-owner Stuart Glass, from Canada, and the charterer, British man John Dewhirst.
Kerry Hamill was 28 when he was killed in 1978. This was where Mr Hamill, Mr Dewhirst and possibly 10 or more Westerners, among more than 10,000 Cambodians, were tortured and killed.
On the stand at the trial this week is prison chief "Duch" – real name Kaing Guek Eav – who ran Tuol Sleng, the former primary school that was turned into a torture centre and prison.
Mr Hamill, who represented New Zealand at the Olympics in 1996 and rowed the Atlantic Ocean, setting a world record with Phil Stubbs, plans to go to Cambodia for the trial once it gets under way. Mr Glass was killed when the yacht was captured. He has spent several years trying to find out what happened to his brother.
"We look forward to seeing some sort of justice as far as the family goes," Mr Hamill said."
Four Americans and two Australians are among the Westerners murdered by the Khmer Rouge. "We think the weather blew him off course and he got into territorial waters.
The Tuol Sleng prison, also known as S21, is now visited by most travellers to Phnom Penh.
The regime ruled Cambodia, which they renamed Democratic Kampuchea, from 1975 to 1979, when the Vietnamese gained control and forced them into hiding.
"Duch" – now 66 – is charged with overseeing the torture and extermination of more than 12,000 men, women and children at Tuol Sleng. Photographs taken by the Khmer Rouge of their captives are displayed alongside "confessions" to being CIA operatives. . He was formerly a maths teacher.

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Trio building up Wellington fan base

The Monday, 09 February 2009

MAARTEN HOLL/The
PHYSICAL GRAFFITI: Terence Turner (top) and Harley Durst are watched by Tiago Miranda as they bounce around buildings in Wellington’s Civic Centre in an exhibition of the French discipline of parkour.

They run up walls, bounce off balustrades, leap across roofs and all but defy gravity.
Spiderman-like exponents of the French discipline of parkour Harley Durst, Terence Turner and Tiago Miranda ran and bounced around the architectural features in Wellington's Civic Centre on Saturday.
They were the star act in New Zealand's first national parkour meet – a showcase for a sport that combines balance, speed, agility and strength in an athletic mix of running and climbing obstacles in the quickest way possible. .
Tutoring was provided by a top Australian exponent.
Shahir Daud, the group's cameraman, said more than 50 young people interested in the sport turned up to get tips on how it was done, starting with instructions on how to jump safely as well as jumping and rolling on hard surfaces without suffering injuries.
"I've been filming them for a year and they're very safety-conscious and I've not seen one injury."
The sport, which originated in France more than a decade ago, has become popular through films such as The Bourne Identity, Casino Royale and Die Hard 4. The whole point is training the body to absorb impact and fall correctly.

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Nazi collectible sales ‘abhorrent’

By KEITH LYNCH – Saturday, 07 February 2009

The continued sale of Nazi memorabilia in New Zealand is "disgraceful", Jewish leaders say.
A search of online auction site Zillion this week found several Third Reich collectibles up for sale, including medals, pins and armbands, most adorned with swastikas.
Despite bans in many European countries, the sale of Nazi artefacts is legal in New Zealand.
"It is disgraceful when people make a profit from the sale of items that commemorate the crimes committed by others.
New Zealand Jewish Council president Stephen Goodman said the sale of the items was disgraceful, but stopped short of calling for a ban.
"In many ways, we'd like it to be made illegal, but that said, doing so might give it publicity that would only encourage certain elements. There is, of course, a balance between the freedom of choice and censorship, but profiting from the sale of these items is abhorrent."
Wellington Regional Jewish Council chairman David Zwartz said the sale of Nazi items was deeply offensive.
"After media publicity last year, the prominent auction house Dunbar Sloane changed their policy and now will not handle Nazi material.
"The publicised sale of Nazi memorabilia is offensive to Holocaust survivors and returned servicemen and women from World War II," he said.
Trade Me business manager Mike O'Donnell said the history associated with Nazism made banning the sale of the items an easy decision. . We ban items that relate to anti-semitism, extermination and racial dominance.
"Nazism is a school of thought and there is hate literature associated with it. It's a no-go area for us. It's a no-go area for us.
"That said, we support consumers' freedom and right to do as they please within the law and do not feel that it is Zillion's place to act as a moral censor.
"Firstly and most importantly, Zillion in no way endorses the Nazi regime or those who continue to espouse its rhetoric," he said.
"In the case of Zillion, we simply provide a mechanism for New Zealanders to buy and sell items that are legally tradeable in an open and efficient online auction environment," the spokesman said.
"These same objects, like wartime memorabilia from many nations, are common collector's items and can be purchased in antique and second-hand shops across New Zealand.