Humble hero tickled pink
A man dressed as a pink fairy for a charity fundraiser who stopped a would-be robber in his tracks says he reacted as a ‘‘natural instinct’’.
About 2pm on Sunday, a 42-year-old offender who allegedly attempted to rob a dairy on Hastings St, Napier, was chased down and tackled on Marine Parade by Napier man Liam Fontaine, along with a 14-year-old boy.
Fontaine was on his way out of the dairy with his sister, Kristel, when the man walked past them into the shop.
‘‘He passed me and kind of gave me a little bit of a shoulder barge, and I thought ‘this is a suspiciouslooking character’.
‘‘I chased him on foot with another 14-year-old fella. Then we got him on the ground on Marine Parade and an off-duty police officer stopped to help.’’
Fontaine had just returned from a breast cancer awareness walk with Kristel, which he did in memory of his mother who passed away from breast cancer in 2013.
‘‘She definitely would be proud. My dad’s pretty proud of me too, but I’m trying to stay a bit humble about it.’’
Fontaine said he just wanted to keep the community safe, and acted on impulse.
‘‘I just thought I was doing what anybody else would do. I try my hardest to be a nice person.’’
Kristel Fontaine said she phoned police as her brother and the 14-year-old boy, Michael, chased the offender down.
‘‘I said to [Liam], ‘he’s going to rob the place’. I got straight on to the phone while Michael and Liam chased him down the street ... I just thought ‘he can’t get away with this’.
‘‘It’s terrible behaviour, it’s idiotic behaviour, it’s disgusting behaviour. It was just no second thought, we needed to stop him.’’
She said their mother would be ‘‘extremely proud’’ of what they both did, and she knew the boy’s family was also proud.
The alleged offender appeared in the Hastings District Court yesterday. He was granted interim name suppression and was remanded in custody until next month .