Security footage has captured a violent mob storming a Perth grocery store, attacking staff and ransacking shelves, after the shop’s frustrated owner detained a nine-year-old shoplifter.
The citizen’s arrest has landed the owner of the Kelmscott IGA with a serious deprivation of liberty charge, but those behind the retaliation attack are yet to face any consequences.
The vision obtained exclusively by 9News shows the 41-year-old storeman being cornered by six people on December 30th, before he’s punched twice in the head.
The mob grows as more people storm the Albany Highway store, trashing property and raiding shelves as stunned customers look on.
Store goods and rocks are hurled at staff; one is showered in debris and so petrified he cowers behind the counter, as a young woman helps herself to packets of cigarettes.
The ambush was in response to the store’s owner performing a citizen’s arrest on a nine-year-old boy trying to leave the shop with a stolen bottle of Coca-Cola just minutes earlier.
The shopkeeper, a father-of-one, can be seen in the security footage grabbing the would-be thief then dragging him through the shop before locking him in an office.
Lawyer John Hammond said the shop owner was fed up after the boy stole from him just two days earlier.
Mr Hammond claims his client’s intention was to detain the child until police arrived, but instead the boy’s associates got there first and unleashed.
He’s now calling for the group to be charged.
“My client's shop is getting regularly robbed, he's regularly copping tirades of abuse from customers and he's had enough,” Mr Hammond said.
Mr Hammond claims the boy was released after seven-and-a-half minutes.
He'd suffered cuts to his head, hand and arm trying to smash a window and escape.
Mr Hammond said the store owner migrated his young family from war-torn Iran 18 months ago for a safer and peaceful life, but he feels like he's encountered a different kind of unrest in the form of relentless stealing and abuse from customers.
But CEO of Ngalla Maya Aboriginal Corporation, Mervyn Eades, who is spokesperson for the boy and his family, said there was no excuse for the shopkeeper’s behaviour.
“His actions aren’t justified no way whatsoever, you do not touch anyone else's child no matter what,” Mr Eades said.
The Indigenous activist said the boy has been left traumatised.
“He won’t go into shops without any adults or his parents with him,” Mr Eades said.
The Kelmscott storeman’s insurer won’t cover the $2000 bill for damage and losses because he’s facing charges including common assault, which he plans to plead not guilty to.
He’s not the only one in hot-water for defending his livelihood, with a Bertram IGA owner also under investigation for allegedly man-handling a 14-year-old thief.
The incidents have sparked calls for changes to the law to help store owners who are regularly the targets of thieves.
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