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The store sells gaming cards, models and role-play figurines, and hosts gaming sessions three or four nights a week. No merchandise has been stolen in the attacks.

Manager Patrick Ho said his customers many of whom are Asian or Indian were racially abused by drunken passers-by during late-night gaming sessions. He said the harassment and vandalism could be linked.

“At least twice a month there will be drunk people who come past the shop and see us playing games inside. They’ll start shouting and swearing at us and banging really hard on the windows,” Mr Ho said.

In the most serious attack, Mr Ho’s friend Ganesh Subramaniam was assaulted as he left the shop last month.

Mr Subramaniam, a junior doctor at Waikato Hospital, said he was inside the shop late at night when a man came to the glass door and started doing Nazi salutes and yelling “white power” slogans.

When Mr Subramaniam and Mr Ho later left the shop, the man appeared from a nearby car and started kicking Mr Subramaniam.

“The abuse does put me off hanging out at the shop,” Mr Subramaniam said. “I never would have expected the abuse to turn into physical assault.”

Mr Ho said another possible explanation for the continued harassment was that gaming was seen as “geeky”.

“People may harass us because they see us as geeky but that isn’t true. A lot of families enjoy playing board games, not just us.”

Mr Ho said he had no intention of moving to a different location because the inner-city store drew people walking to and from the nearby Hamilton Transport Centre.

Waikato police communications manager Andrew McAlley said “alcohol-fuelled” crime was endemic in Hamilton’s CBD and police aimed to have an increased presence in the area at night.

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During the trial, which began on Monday, the court heard a juror had received a note with “not guilty” in capital letters and a swastika written on it during the trial of four men charged with the kidnap, robbery and assault of a Canadian Indian tourist in April last year.

Three of the defendants in the trial, Jaydon Borland, Jason Gregory and Benjamin McPadden, were found guilty of various charges, while the fourth, Mark Gage, was discharged due to lack of evidence.

On the last day of the trial, the juror – whose identity is suppressed – found the note on his doorstep, was discharged from the jury and later left New Zealand, in part due to concerns over his family’s safety.

Crown prosecutor Mark Anderson said the juror was targeted by white supremacist associates of the men as he was not Caucasian.

A search of Bowling’s home located pro-nazi paraphernalia and writings and articles about the trial of the men.

Bowling’s fingerprint was on the note, and it came from an exercise book he owned. When arrested, he posed a hypothetical question to a police officer, asking what would happen if it emerged he had written the note but not delivered it.

The Crown said this constituted an admission.

Bowling’s defence lawyer Keith Jefferies said the Crown had the wrong man, and implicated two other people who also had the motive and means to have sent the note.

Today, Justice Robert Dobson told the jury to put aside feelings of prejudice or sympathy while considering the evidence in the case.

“You may find that anti-Black or anti-Jewish slogans are offensive. You must put any such feelings to one side,” he said.

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Summing up the crown case yesterday, prosecutor Mark Anderson said the juror was singled out because he was not white.

Bowling’s fingerprint was on the paper the message was written on, at a place which showed it had been made after the note was folded.

Bowling had posed a hypothetical question to his arresting officer, asking what would happen if he admitted writing the note but denied knowing what it was going to be used for.

Mr Anderson said for the charge to be proven, the jury only had to find Bowling had taken a positive step or act in relation to the offence.

He said the note had been written on pages from Bowling’s book. It had his fingerprint on it.

Bowling was a known white supremacist with links to the defendants in the trial.

The evidence he had been involved in writing the note was “overwhelming”.

The jury could also draw the inference he had delivered the note.

However, defence lawyer Keith Jefferies said there was no evidence whatsoever pinning the crime on his client.

The fingerprint could have been put on the paper at any time, and the rest of the evidence was speculation.

He said the crown was asking the jury to speculate and guess - a “travesty of justice”.

“There is a large gaping crevasse in the crown’s case and they’re trying to cover it up with fancy words,” Mr Jefferies said.

He said the jury had to put aside their dislike of the way his client looked or his political or cultural views and act dispassionately, as judges.

Justice Robert Dobson will give his summary of the case to the jury of eight men and four women today.

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In that split-second, she said she didn’t know whether the four “skinheads”, were just playing a prank, trying to freak her out.

“I didn’t know whether it was a slug gun or a real gun or what. I just saw these two kind of drug-crazed eyes looking at me.”

At the last moment, she ducked.

Ms Simpson said she jerked her head to the side - just in time to feel something graze against her ear, and slam into the wall behind her.

What was later found to be a slug- gun pellet had brushed past her ear and embedded in the wall.

Shaken, Ms Simpson said she went to the Palmerston North police station. But she said police told her there was a limited amount they could do because she couldn’t give a detailed description of the car.

“It was literally a drive-by. I’m not sure whether it was our cause, or whether it’s just because I’m a hippy chick with natty dreadlocks.”

Ms Simpson has dealt with blisters, hypothermia, emotional and physical exhaustion during the past seven weeks - but this was the first threat of a gunshot wound.

The former Greenpeace worker is on a travelling protest from Auckland to the West Coast with her friend Mick France, 43, to oppose a coal mine in Happy Valley.

She has walked the entire way, while Mr France drives the support vehicle. Their trip had been peaceful until Friday, she said.

Their protest banner was also swiped by a group of “young, drunk people” in a white ute while they camped in in a lookout area on the Pahiatua Track on Sunday, Ms Simpson said.

Speaking from Hamilton, Ms Simpson’s mother, Tui Allen, said her daughter and Mr France did not deserve this kind of aggressive behaviour.

“They are two idealistic young people, kind of radical, and trying to imagine an ideal world where everyone is perfect and doesn’t shoot each other.”

But standing up publicly for a cause was bound to bring some negative response, Ms Allen said.

“You can’t walk the country and do something like this without getting up some people’s noses.”

The route Ms Simpson and Mr France had taken had not been easy - tough conditions on the Desert Road had left fellow walkers battling hypothermia, Ms Allen said.

“Before she started, Heather was an average kind of plump 22-year- old, but now she’s as skinny as a rake.”

But Ms Simpson said the pair’s resolve had been hardened by the near-death experience.

“Nothing is going to stop us now. I am going to get there if I die trying.

“There are people out there who are going to be hostile - this just makes us more careful and alert. “It was a surprise to get it in Palmerston North. But I would not let that reflect on the whole place.”

Anyone with information about the stolen banner should contact Palmerston North city councillor Chris Teo-Sherrell. The walkers would like it back.

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The attack happened as they were walking to the Brookfield shop last Sunday. One of Zoe’s brothers was abused again the next morning as he rode his bike to school.

The siblings speak fluent English, have made friends here and made Tauranga their home but say this is the most confrontational in a series of unprovoked incidents since their arrival.

Others have included Zoe’s brother having what appeared to be a gun pointed at him from a passing car, waterbombing and snide remarks.

Zoe, a New Zealand citizen for nearly five years and resident for twice that, told the Bay of Plenty Times:

“I think we were all quite traumatised. I was just utterly shocked and surprised that someone would do that. It was something I had never experienced before.”

Zoe has spoken out but her brothers do not want to be identified.

They were walking along Bellevue Rd on Sunday at 8pm when five European girls, believed to be aged between eight and 12, tried to block the footpath as they walked in the opposite direction, shoving them as they went by.

When that did not get a reaction the girls followed them chanting “Go back to China”, and crude threats of “If you don’t go back, we’ll hang you by your pubic hair”.

Following the siblings towards the Brookfield shops they tried to pull Zoe’s brother off his bike and trip Zoe up several times, touching her hair and pulling at their clothes.

The attack lasted up to 10 minutes and the girls finally gave up near the shops. Zoe and her brothers returned home and told their mother and her friend.

Zoe said she had trouble sleeping on Sunday night with the experience still troubling her.

The following morning Zoe’s youngest brother was biking to Otumoetai Intermediate when he crossed paths with the girls again - who once more shouted abuse at him as he rode past.

“I used to brush it off but now I realise how serious it is. When you haven’t been through it before you don’t know how it feels,” Zoe said.

Having lived in Tauranga for a decade, all three children are completely fluent in English and speak Mandarin only at home. They consider themselves Kiwis.

“I have been living here for so many years that I have made all my friends here. I don’t have friends in Taiwan any more. My life is here … They are telling me to go back to a country I don’t even come from.”

Zoe believed the girls attend Otumoetai Intermediate, so she has emailed principal Henk Popping to let him know of the attack.

Mr Popping said he was disturbed to hear of the assault and would investigate.

He would involve the girls’ parents once they were identified.

“It’s not acceptable, totally unacceptable,” he said.

“Whether it’s in our school or out of school, we will take action.”

Racist attacks were most unusual, he said, and they had not struck them before in the school.

“Obviously every school has a bit of bullying but we have a very strong Speak Up campaign. We will follow it up from our end.”

News of the attack was upsetting for the president of the Tauranga Ethnic Council, Ewa Fenn, who has lived in Tauranga as a Polish emigrant for 22 years.

“That’s really upsetting because I always thought that Tauranga, with a lot of international people coming to live here, has a greater acceptance by the public.”

Mrs Fenn said she had heard of racist remarks in Tauranga towards shopkeepers and taxi drivers, but never before from children.

Tauranga police Senior Sergeant Glenn Saunders said regardless of the age of offenders, victims of an assault should contact the police.

“There are ways and means of dealing with people. Even if they are under 14 years of age and can not be prosecuted there are other avenues available to deal with it.”

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The desecration was reported to Wellington Hebrew Congregation Chevra Kadisha on October 7. It refrained from publicising the incident, for fear of prompting copycat incidents. And the following day, the Wellington City Council’s anti-graffiti response team removed almost all evidence of the attack.

But in a discussion several weeks later, the Wellington Regional Jewish Council overturned the Chevra’s decision and acknowledged the incident in the wider community. The vandalism is believed to be clearly linked to a front-page article published in Wellington’s Dominion Post two days prior to the incident.

The article was based on an interview with Israeli Ambassador Yuval Rotem where he said he would like to employ a Maori in his Canberra office to improve relations and understanding. Journalist Hank Schouten focused on this indiscretion and used the headline: “I need a Maori�.

In the article, Rotem was criticised for being unaware of New Zealand law relating to discrimination. Schouten asked NZ Race Relations Commissioner Joris de Bres for his impartial opinion, and the commissioner said it was laudable that the ambassador was looking for somebody knowledgeable about indigenous people and culture, “but I would have thought he would need to look for a competency rather than an ethnicity�.

Together with the usual antisemitic phrases, the vandals included Rotem, Schouten and de Bres as targets in their painting spree. “In my mind, there is no doubt about the connection [between the article and the desecration],� said Wellington Regional Jewish Council chair David Zwartz.

“I was disappointed that Hank Schouten picked up on a throwaway line at the end of a one-and-a-half hour interview and made it the focus of his article. But to my mind, there is no doubt that someone read it with malicious interest and acted.�

Zwartz added that it was ironic the vandals vilified Schouten himself, along with de Bres, who supported the focus of the article. “It shows a low level of understanding by the desecrators, that they apparently associated Joris de Bres with Jews and the Israeli ambassador, when in fact, his comments criticised the ambassador,� said Zwartz.

“It is symptomatic of a general negative New Zealand media attitude towards Israel, that what was an unwittingly inappropriate suggestion by the ambassador, became a calculatedly critical article from The Dominion Post,� he added.

Israeli Embassy spokesman Dor Shapira concurred: “The article took the idea in the wrong direction. It was antisemitism. The ambassador’s idea to hire someone who could give an insight into the culture and history was a good idea. Of course, he would be hiring someone for his skills and not his family.�

He said the ambassador had suggested this idea to many of the ministers that he met while in New Zealand, all of who had loved the idea. “We’ve received a lot of CVs from people wanting to work here since then,� Shapira added.

Three years ago, Jewish graves at the Bolton Street and Makara cemeteries were desecrated with more than 80 graves overturned and vandalised. The attack took place over a period of two weeks. The damage to both sites has since been repaired.

Police have not found the perpetrator(s) but have kept the file open.

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