Arrests made following brazen daylight smash-and-grab at Wellington jewellery store

Four people have been arrested following a brazen daylight robbery at a Wellington Michael Hill store.

Dramatic footage showed thieves breaking into a Michael Hill store in broad daylight on Saturday afternoon with members of the public trying to intervene.

In a statement, police said four people had been arrested following an aggravated robbery at the central Wellington business.

“At 1pm, Police were called to a Victoria Street business, near Manners Street, after several offenders entered the store and smashed display cases, fleeing with a number of items,” police said.

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“Police located a vehicle of interest heading north of Wellington and stopped the vehicle at the Paremata roundabout on State Highway 59. Four individuals were taken into custody without incident.”

In video filmed by a witness, a man dressed all in black and wearing a black ski mask is seen standing by the driver’s door of a silver car mounted on the footpath outside the Michael Hill store on the corner of Manners St and Victoria St.

Three more masked people then ran out of the store, and one of them charged at witnesses before they all got into the car and it sped off along Victoria St.

Anna, who asked not to have her surname used, filmed the raid and said she had momentarily looked down on the intersection from a room she was in and realised something was about to happen.

“It was crazy. It’s always busy but today it just seemed really busy,” she said, adding the offenders hadn’t needed to smash their way into the shop as they went through the door.

Once they were inside “you could hear them smashing stuff and yelling”.

The bystanders who had tried to stop them were amazing, she said. “But what can you do when there’s a hammer and a crowbar in your face?”

Her thoughts were with Michael Hill staff: “I just feel really sorry for them…they were just doing their job.”

The manager at clothing store Storm, a couple of doors down, said the car had pulled up onto the footpath and a number of people had jumped out.

She didn’t see the robbery itself, but could hear loud and aggressive smashing.

“The vibe was just big, loud scariness.”

She said police were diverting traffic from the street, and a photograph taken by a Stuff staff member a short time later showed the store had been taped off with an officer standing guard.

The robbery follows a near-identical attack at a Michael Hill store in New Plymouth on Friday, where two hammer-wielding thieves jumped out of a car and smashed their way inside. The car that was used was later found dumped.