Retail crime is a lot more than just a statistic.

Chapter One - 2 Robberies in 3 days

They are back again, that is the first thing I remember from that evening. My mum screaming at top of her voice pointing to group of masked men running around the corner towards our shop. This was July 2019 and I was working in our Huntly store with my mother on a not so typical Tuesday evening.

Our store had its first ever aggravated robbery just 3 days ago on Saturday night our 1st after nearly 15 years of trading. My poor mother and store manager were working in shop. 3 masked men armed with hammers came in an hour before closing time and robbed the store under threat of violence with hammers.

As a tight knit family business we had not quite processed this attack when the rodeo started again just 3 days later.

I was sitting behind one of tills working on my laptop doing something for our Online Store Eight Pm ( irony is so rich I get robbed while running a business, plus another online business, all of which adds more $$$ to tax pool ). When the first guy came charging in yelling I saw my mother already compliant with her hands up in air. I was not going to fight anyone, or do anything stupid to jeopardize especially my mothers safety.

As a number of these men looted our store all I could think about initially is I cannot let them take my phone and laptop, as it has a lot of my unsaved work + my family photos.

Very stupid of me right? But this turned out to be a good move as during my stupidity of getting in close proximity to one of robbers while saving my electronic devices I recognized him. His mask slipped while jumping the counter and I knew exactly who this person was. He was a regular customer of our business and I knew his extended family too ( more on this later ).

A whole lot more happened that evening with massive police operation, locals and friends coming in to help us in whatever way they could.

As things settled I finally caught a moment to check on my mother. She was just sitting there looking into blank space. This was her 2nd aggravated robbery in 3 days. That blank look on her face absolutely broke me as a man. I felt intense guilt of failing to protect my mother and my business.

Police later charged a suspect and things went absolutely quiet for a very long time regarding this incident.

Wider friends and community response to our 2 robberies in 3 days absolutely melted my family heart. Local community rallied to help police identify potential offenders. With countless people dropping off cards, flowers and just simply a hug or handshake which meant a lot more.

Damian May from 2E electrical rallied all his tradie mates to make new urgent security arrangements to our business. Better CCTV, Lighting and a lot other arrangements were made.

My father decided we are going to have a static guard at the door for next 3 months on the busy evenings in particular so all of staff feel safe with extra staff on other days also.

A dear group of LinkedIn friends led by Glenn Marvin, John Maybury & others fundraised a lovely gift for my mother and father to go on a holiday somewhere to get mind off all the negative stuff.

Chapter Two - $$$ Cost of retail Crime

These 2 incidents all up cost our business just over $55000.

That figure is made up loss of profits because of store closures, new security arrangements - cctv - lighting - fog cannon, static security guard over 3 months and stock losses insurance does not cover.

The pain and suffering my family suffered in July 2019 was not an isolated incident. It was part of wider issue of intense rise in Aggravated robberies around Auckland & Waikato. In my humble opinion ram raids were not an issue by this time. Waikato in particular was largely plagued by aggravated robbery incidents throughout 2018-2019 till first lockdown.

Which led to first lot of cages being installed all around Waikato/Auckland at Dairies & Liquor Stores. Cages which allows store worker to analyze you as a threat before granting you access to the store.

There was never any funding for any of this at this stage, poor businesses owners had to spend a lot of money to make themselves safe.

But I refused to work from behind a cage, because I am not an animal.

I recall saying to a journalist around this time:

Roles have been reversed somehow because in a zoo dangerous animals are in cages and we humans roam free, but now a retailer is caged up, and dangerous criminals are roaming free.

Our family made the difficult decision to sell the store after 15 years of trading. I quickly found a prospective buyer in September 2019 and negotiated a sale price of $$$. I foolishly suggested we delay settlement as Christmas & New Year is coming fast. We shook hands and made a gentlemen's agreement to do settlement procedures in end of January 2020.

I am an old soul and my life led by business practices learned from my own father had largely been run on handshake deals.

We will all remember first 3 months of 2020 in particular forever because of intense chatter about global covid-19. The uncertainties and whole lot of maybes absolutely blindsided all of us.

Then the Lockdowns started and what happens next is well documented. Massive disruption not just to human life but also other commerce matters.

Once things started to settle a bit in July 2020 I finally rang my prospective buyer to ask if he is still interested in buying the business because it is actually making same sales as before lockdown. He gave me a run around for couple of months and then in September 2020 he finally told me he cannot buy the business because he is scared to make further investments during the pandemic uncertainties.

This was real blow as I had foolishly not done due diligence with anyone else based on a hand shake agreement. There was many in late 2019 who wanted to buy a profitable liquor store at even higher $$$ but I had made a commitment.

But in September 2020 even though the uncertainty of lockdowns was largely over, banks now were very reluctant to give money to buy businesses. Which confused me because it was clearly demonstrated liquor store in particular profit and sales wise was rock solid investment. Unlike hospitality and lot of other services providing businesses a liquor store was rock solid business as people drink in joy and sadness.

This deal falling through led to a series of further failed deals over the next 18 months because of countless prospective buyers failing to get a loan.

But these following 18-30 months also saw an intense rise in retail crime especially switch in looting methods from aggravated robbery to ram raids.

Our stores unfortunately also suffered multiple ram raids which kept the wound of the 2 aggravated robberies fresh also because the trial for the robbery had not happened yet either ( more on this later in article )

All up we had to spend $67000+ on repairs, shop closures losses and stock losses insurance would not cover because of multiple ram raids. Plus losses of both our landlords.

No matter what new security arrangements I made these ram raiders kept finding new unique ways to loot us. On some instances doing several thousand $$$ in damages and failing to even get into the store.

Each ram raid further hindered my ability to sell the store also because I had heavily become involved in advocacy work around retail crime. Sharing stories of my repeated looting incidents.

I had begun using my personal social handles Facebook & LinkedIn to highlight the pain and suffering of myself and other retailers. Plus Waikato Times printed some of my comments on retail crime columns.

Then the call came from a producer at AM show ( news hub ) if I would like to come on the show to talk about all of this with Ryan Bridge. One interview led to many more and all of sudden I was absolutely consumed by doing countless media interviews.

I went through a period of waking up every morning with my WhatsApp full of yet another ram raid or robber in Waikato/Auckland region overnight.

More I talked about retail crime harder it became to sell my own business.

This also came because of human stupidity, and I am not going to be delicate here.

Every time I shared a video or photos of an attack of retail crime people especially my close friends and family very stupidity assumed my own business has been attacked yet again. People would ring my poor parents offering condolences because of another attack on our business.

These stupid people like most of kiwis had become so desensitized to robbery/ramraid video's they lost the ability to read the accompanying words describing where this latest attack happened or to whom.

My steps into politics are very well documented and for purpose of this article I am not going to talk about it in detail. But I am very proud of my efforts in this space. Very successfully making retail crime a big part of elections 2023 conversations. Only my maker and wife knows the true emotional/physical toll this took on me.

But my retail crime advocacy and then involvement in politics made it impossible to sell my own business even further. All someone had to do was type into google ash parmar/retail crime and you had countless stories to look at.

Stories not necessarily associated with crime at my own business, but I have already highlighted peoples stupidity.

I was absolutely losing my mind and for first time in my life my brain started to explore some very dark thoughts including self harm. From February 2022 onwards my work and productivity suffered immensely as I got more heavily involved in advocacy work and then politics.

For all I am worth I will forever be in debt to my dear friend Wendy Cooper who runs the Hamilton/Waikato Crime Facebook Page. After many friends had failed to repeatedly she successfully managed to get me to commit to some counselling in May 2023 to finally address my PTSD from 2019 robbery.

First few sessions felt like a waste of time because I did not want to open up and just went through the motions of it all. But full credit to my counsellor who I will not name for privacy reasons she finally broke me literally.

One particular session left me crying intensely because she helped me finally identify 2 simple triggers of my PTSD:

#1 Reason why I care so much about retail crime is because every aggravated robbery video I see I try and picture myself in those moments to try and feel the pain of the VICTIM to relate to my own suffering.

#2 The unfortunate moments I shared in 2019 with my mother has severely damaged my confidence. She is my rock someone I took courage and confidence from.

Those 10 counselling sessions helped me so much to gain skills to control the triggers. But 100% prepared me to be a much stronger voice especially involved in politics later.

Post election having failed to get into parliament I was back in my store feeling absolutely trapped.

In November 2023 weeks after elections my family and I made the difficult decision to reduce our store selling price even further by $200k to simply get rid of it.

Securing a buyer almost immediately at a heavily discounted rate we were overjoyed with end of long suffering coming to an end. But then good old kiwi overburdened bureaucracy kicked in delaying sale process by many months ( more on that another day ).

In the end I finally managed to sell and get out of our Huntly store in June 2024 after jumping through many hoops. The joy and relief I feel is very well documented too and from that day to moments I am writing this article today on fathers day 2024 I feel like I have lived my best life in a very long time

My rough estimate of losses we suffered from April 2019 to June 2024 because of retail crime:

$300k on goodwill from sale of a very profitable business.

$122k on shop repairs, repeated security upgrades, stock losses.

I cannot put a $ figure on all the extra wages we paid by doubling up on staff on shifts only one staff was required to run business profitably.

I cannot put a $ figure on losses incurred by my continued poor productivity over a very long period of time.

I cannot put a $ figure on losses incurred because of reduction in store trading hours so staff feel safe.

I cannot list everything here, but simply in end we sold our Huntly business at net zero goodwill of $0 just to get out of it and in a way stop incurring more losses.

Please take a moment to think about many Auckland/Hamilton dairy owners who basically shut shop and walked away because they could not afford the insurance premium rises anymore and the repeated attacks.

Or even corporate stores like Michael Hill, Spark and others who are closing stores because of retail crime.

Chapter 3 - Justice delayed is justice denied.

Words are cheap but the trauma retail crime victims feel is very real. Especially when you are victim of same crime again and again with no end in sight.

My day in court finally came to get some justice for robbery my mother and I were victims of in July 2019. Because of many issues caused by lockdowns and covid-19 the trial was massively delayed but it finally happened.

The first day I went to court I finally got an idea of offenders extended family who were all present in court. I knew all of them very well from being in customers in shop over the years.

At a particular point during the trial as a witness I was presented with some photos to identify the scene of crime. I am under oath as it is procedure to tell the truth.

Unfortunately police had given the court wrong pictures for the trial. The pictures I was shown was the aftermath of our Saturday July 2019 robbery not the Tuesday after it Robbery which was the matter in front of court.

I was not going to lie just to put a man in jail so I spoke my truth and told the court these pictures are wrong but scene of crime is correct.

I felt instant regret the moment I said those words because I could sense this will jeopardize the trial in some way. The defense lawyer said some words to judge then jury and I as witness were told to take leave from court for while.

Short while later prosecutor and police officer came out and informed me and my mother a mis-trial has been called. I do not exactly recall the words it was to effect that me as witness is not clear of scene of crime etc.

That was absolutely soul crushing because if anything I was only one in that court room that pointed out the mistake in procedure and evidence. If anything I had the best clarity out of all involved.

To this day I do not have a single piece of paper explaining that trial or decision made to chuck it out.

Neither do I have an apology from anyone involved or admission of mistake by anyone from police or an explanation from courts.

In June 2021 I informed the police about a number of threats the offender made to me on Facebook. I supplied police with several screenshots of these threats which were actually in public Facebook group for Huntly community.

All police told me was he is on electronically monitored bail and they will follow this up. But he did not threaten me directly again after this.

Following this a man turned up at my store one day identifying himself as offenders brother in law. Then followed one of most bizarre conversations I have been part of in my life. He was looking into the distance and speaking very vaguely about how he has just come out of prison and is not afraid to go back to it. He spoke about how people should be very careful about there recollection of certain incidents. He kept talking for some time then I interrupted him and encouraged him to talk his thoughts to Police as there is absolutely nothing I have to discuss with him about a case that is in front of courts.

The moment he left my staff member and the wine sales rep who was also present in shop asked me if they should call the police I said no because ill deal with it later.

The wine rep said she has no idea about anything but that felt like a shakedown and the man was threatening me to not be involved in a court matter.

I contacted the police and informed them of this second threat to me. They identified the man quickly from CCTV footage but were unsuccessful in locating him.

I have not seen this man again and no more threats were made to me by anyone else.

But both these threats made me very aware of gang affiliations of both the offender and his brother in law.

Then the big moment came back in 2022 a re-trial date was set.

I emotionally and mentally prepared myself for the opportunity to finish this very ugly chapter of my life and just move on from it finally.

Day before the trial police informed me the trial has been adjourned because offender lawyer has requested a Cultural Report to be done on the offender.

I yet again felt absolutely let down by New Zealand Police & Courts. They had nearly 3 year+ few months to get one done.

New trial date was finally set and it finally got underway. Unlike previous trial I decided to take a support person with me as all these delays and threats had truly rattled me. I deeply appreciate Stuart Nelmes for being my rock during the trial dates.

To my shock no mention is made of threats made to me by the offender and the other man during trial but I kept quiet not wanting to jeopardize court procedure again. More interestingly at the second trial none of offenders family members came to support him.

During the trial one key moment I recall is when the prosecuting lawyer asked me very specifically: how did it make me feel to look at my mother during the robbery with her hands up in air?

I unfortunately started to shake and it took me a very long time to compose myself to reply : IT MADE ME FEEL LIKE S**t

The offender was later found guilty by the jury on robbery and a few other charges.

Please note I do not have a single piece of paper to explain the trial or what jury and judge might have said during periods I was not in court.

For those of you who have had the unfortunate pleasure of being involved in court procedures would understand how much care and effort goes into making the offender feel comfortable and explained his or her rights.

But what about us victims? We just get a sympathetic ear and handshake where is the paper trail?

Few months later I was invited to attend the sentencing and read a victim impact statement if I choose to go.

I prepared a brief victim statement which I ran past my dear friend Glenn Marvin who helped me understand what I have written does not even remotely cover the emotional and mental harm this incident has caused me.

I finally was able to read my fully extended victim statement, I deeply appreciate the Judge who allowed such a lengthy statement. ‘I’ve been given a life sentence of anxiety’: Bottle shop owner confronts robber.

An excerpt from article " The court heard that while Parmar had diligently compiled and given a large amount of CCTV footage to police, none of it was shown to the jury at trial, due to error. "

Please do read the above linked article.

The offender after various discounts including cultural report discounts was sentenced to 3 years 3 months in jail. At this point the robbery had happened 3 years 6 months ago.

Offender got a 75%+ discount on his sentence for all the trauma he caused me. Even Briscoes does not give you 75% off. Despite previous offending history and subsequent offending while on bail for my robbery.

Also got a 75+ discount with no pressure at all to reveal who were rest of the offenders in this particular robbery.

During the sentencing I also for first time heard about the offenders extensive offending record.

I left the court room shook the police man hand and thanked him for supporting me during sentencing.

But I still have not a single piece of paper that documents anything at all detailing the mis-trial and the second full trial.

It was made absolutely clear to me though I should not expect any reparations, where did the money from loot go?

Please take a moment to think about the $$$ involved and loss of productivity caused by:

My involvement in this matter over a very long period of time

Police resources required from first response of robbery to the point of handshake with police officer 3 years and 6 months later at sentencing

Courts costs + human cost of two sets of jury involved in trials

Taxpayer $$$ help to offender throughout the process

Summary

Purpose of this article is to give an average kiwi insight into a victims life. A lot more is involved than what a mainstream article or 2-3 minutes news report can put forward.

Retail crime impacts not just in the moments of an attack it's pain and suffering lingers for much longer.

There is a whole lot I have revealed in this article about both poor and lack of police/courts procedures I experienced first hand. There is so much much to be desired in this space, victims deserve better.

I was victim of a very serious crime, just take a moment to think about all other retail crime victims that sit threshold wise below aggravated robbery. They don't even get proper acknowledgement they have been victims of a retail crime.

You see there was once a time I was mainstream media darling, they wanted my comment on retail crime issues continually. But from moment I was announced as candidate in general elections 2023 my phone stopped ringing from media largely, radio silence mostly. No invite to debates about crime during election cycle.

Oh actually except for when during the election cycle they tried to make it sound like I am some nut job who believes a new world order. Report said In 2020, the ACT candidate commented on a Facebook rant about the 'New World Order' that it "sure f***ing sucks to be basically a pawn in a grand game we have no control over".

I live my life an open book on social handles and the fact they had to dig so deep to try discredit me is laughable.

But that's ok I understand the game now, and I seek no help from Mainstream Media. They are simply interested in click baiting mostly.

That is why I have written this lengthy article on my own to put some facts out from a victims perspective.

One of the best pieces of Journalism I have seen in retail crime space is by:

Emma Hatton: The dairy owner who built himself a cage to work in.

So much is being celebrated in media lately about drop in ram-raid numbers. What about aggravated robbery numbers? Or the fact people can take thousands of $ of merchandise from big box retailers and supermarkets. Often no charges are laid or any real consequences for offenders even if matter goes to court.

Both of New Zealand biggest supermarket chains are reporting alarmingly high assault and theft levels. These staff members often have not much voice but they are victims too of repeated crimes.

Dairy and Liquor stores might be getting a slight break from the retail crime but the looting is carrying on literally.

So much more work is required in this space to uphold rights of victims of retail crime.