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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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