A court has been shown dramatic footage of an Auckland dairy owner being stabbed in the neck during a robbery before he collapsed and died.
A 14-year-old is charged with murder and a 13-year-old with manslaughter after Arun Kumar died in his Henderson shop, the Railside Dairy, last year.
The pair - who have name suppression - also face counts of assault with intent to rob.
At the High Court in Auckland this afternoon the Crown began its case against the pair. Prosecutor Kingi Snelgar described the sequence of events on June 10 last year and played CCTV footage of the robbery, while members of the Kumar family wept in the public gallery.
Neither teen watched the video.
They awoke early that day and Mr Snelgar said it was the younger boy's idea to commit the crime.
"[He] suggested the Railside Dairy was easy to rob, that the two people in the shop were easy targets, targets who wouldn't put up resistance," he said.
They allegedly devised a plan that the older boy, armed with a knife, would demand the money while his co-accused stood guard in the doorway with a metal pole.
Mr Snelgar said the 14-year-old went in and out of the shop a couple of times - "scoping out the dairy" - before the incident developed.
At 7.24am, the older teen demanded money from Mr Kumar, who called for his wife. She brought her husband the phone.
"At this point [the defendant] hit the phone out of her hand and produced a knife, holding it high above his head," Mr Snelgar said.
While Mrs Kumar wrestled the pole from the boy by the door, his co-accused was pictured pursuing Mr Kumar as he retreated behind the counter.
The Crown said he grabbed a small metal pipe to defend himself, but it was not enough.
Mr Snelgar told the court the shopkeeper sustained stab wounds just below his ribs, below the left shoulder and, critically, one to the neck.
Video footage showed the boys flee while Mr Kumar collapsed in the entrance to the shop, leaving a bloody handprint on the counter.
Mr Snelgar said they ran home and the murder accused showered and changed his bloodstained clothes.
Police arrived shortly afterwards and arrested the boys.
The prosecutor said the footage would be key evidence as would testimony by a 13-year-old who followed the defendants to the shop that morning.
Mrs Kumar will give evidence tomorrow after the defence open their respective cases.
The trial before Justice Lang and a jury of six women and six men is scheduled to last about a month.
