SURVIVAL INSTINCT SHINES THROUGH
When two gunmen stormed his jewellery store nearly two decades ago, Robert Hain’s thoughts turned to survival. As the jewellery industry changed around him and mega chains popped up undercutting the family-run stores, his thoughts returned to survival. Wh
ROBERT Hain’s hands shake when he recalls the day he came face-to-face with a trigger-happy robber.
His mug of coffee sits untouched as he searches for the words to adequately describe what happened inside his jewellery store in the small Central Coast town of Erina.
It is October 25, 2001, the lunchtime rush has been through the doors of Robert’s Jewellers. Mr Hain’s son, just 15, is learning the craft as an apprentice. Two other workers are going about their day.
Mr Hain is bent over plying his trade. It is 2.40pm. Two balaclava-clad men storm into the shop, armed with guns, screaming for money. They point what Robert believes to be sawnoff shotguns at each of them, including his young son.
“Someone had just left the shop and as they left, two guys burst in with balaclavas on and guns and some other metal thing, which was making a lot of noise and using it to break things.
“One of them jumped over the counter and the other one came around behind the showcase. It was like he knew where he was going. He pointed the gun straight at me, turned it around to the two guys that were sitting at the bench and my son was in the background where the other guy was near the safe.
“I could tell he just wanted to shoot someone. He had an itchy finger. He was so agitated, he was busting to use this gun.
“They were yelling, ‘where’s the cash, where’s the cash’. They went around, opened a safe and took some jewellery out of there. There was another safe, where the finished work was. They removed a handful of jobs, a lot of custom jobs. “We kept yelling, ‘the cash was in the register’ … there was a lot of up-market jewellery.”
Loaded up with what they wanted, the robbers made a run for it.
“A blue Commodore came around the corner and picked them up. There was a coffee shop opposite the store. There was two off-duty police officers, they saw them running from the shop, so they came running over. That’s when they fired at them.
“There was a concrete wall there and bullets went into it, could have killed anyone in that coffee shop.
“The police closed off all of Erina, they had roadblocks everywhere. It was pointless though, they were gone.”
But for Mr Hain, fear turned to guilt. He had worked long and hard on a number of custom pieces.
“I remember there was two young people getting married and they had their rings stolen in the robbery. We didn’t let them down, we worked hard and remade the rings and they had them by the Saturday. We couldn’t let them down.”
The thieves stole more than jewellery. They stole the Hains’ ability to make money in the busy Christmas period.
“They stole all of our Christmas stock, the insurance company didn’t pay us for about five months, well after Christmas. We couldn’t replace stock, which was a big deal back then. Christmas was big, a lot of people coming in and buying jewellery, but we didn’t have the stock because it had been stolen.”
Another hit came for Mr Hain when on Christmas Day his home was ransacked.
“Somebody must have learnt where I lived, they’d stolen a four-wheel-drive and drove straight through my wrought-iron gates. They smashed in the front door and stole just about everything they could touch. Christmas presents, my ex wife’s jewellery, everything.
“We were out for Christmas lunch, it was very traumatic.”
An investigation was launched into both incidents, but goes cold. Robert packs up his life, including the jewellery safes and display cabinets, and moves to the Gold Coast.
“Nothing comes of it, didn’t hear much from them.
“It was probably about 12 months after the robbery. I packed up those three massive safes and the showcases, I don’t know why, we only sold one of those showcases two years ago.”
For more than 15 years Mr Hain has been a mainstay at The Oasis shopping centre in the heart of Broadbeach. It’s been over 40 years of plying his craft, creating handmade masterpieces. He’s a master jeweller and a platinum member of the Australian Jewellers Association, a true legend of his industry.
“I open the shop, Darje by Roberts Jewellery, and it was doing pretty well, then I opened one in Surfers, that was doing OK, but this one here was doing really well. I ended up closing the one in Surfers. Driving backwards and forwards all the time, it wasn’t what I came here for.
“I’ve continued to do my manufacturing and I specialise in diamond fusion. I still make amazing jewellery, it’s a miracle, I don’t know how I do it.”
He sits there and toils away, making things from scratch. He’s part of a dwindling THIS year, Mr Hain was diagnosed with an aggressive brain tumour. He says it’s in an “awkward spot” requiring an operation to remove it.
“Until this brain tumour came along, I would work seven days a week. I wanted to be there. It’s a stress relief for me to make something nice that people love.