Durban - After being held up in her ransacked Durban North home by two
robbers, a 24-year-old woman was then forced to drive the men to
KwaMashu because they didn't know how to drive and needed a getaway car.
The robbers also gave their startled victim R50, from the R3 500 they
had stolen, to buy petrol.
A combination of criminal inexperience on the part of the
screwdriver-wielding robbers - one in his 20s and the other a teenager -
and the calmness and quick thinking of their victim, photographer Simone
Holmes, meant she and her domestic worker Princess Makhaye, escaped
unharmed during the robbery.
Holmes returned home at about 11.15am, walking in while the robbery was
in progress and found that Makhaye had been tied up.
"A guy walked towards me with a screwdriver and gestured to me to keep
quiet. He told me not to scream and said if I did not scream he would
not stab me," Holmes said on Wednesday.
Although her heart sank when she saw him, she remained calm.
The intruders stole money, Holmes's French passport, three laptops, a
computer, and some of her and her housemates' clothing.
When the pair were ready to leave they wanted to lock Holmes in a bedroom.
Holmes, fearing this might lead to violence, quickly said the doors did
not lock and they should take her car and go.
That's when the robbers came unstuck.
"They said they could not drive... and that I must drive them," Holmes
said.
The men told her to take them to "the market" - Warwick Triangle in
Durban's CBD - but Holmes did not know where that was and asked them to
direct her.
The pair got lost and they ended up on the N2 north.
"I started to freak out because I had no petrol and told them I was
going to run out. So the guy gave me R50 of my money back."
The man said they stole her belongings as they also wanted "nice
things", so Holmes advised him to get an education. He said he dropped
out of school in Grade 10.
During the drive Holmes negotiated to get her laptop and pocket camera
back, which the robbers agreed to. She also kept her phone after telling
them she would blacklist it, so it would be useless to them.
Eventually Holmes was made to turn off at KwaMashu and told to stop at
the taxi rank.
After unpacking their loot, they told Holmes to leave. Holmes asked them
to hand back her laptop and camera as they had promised, but they would
not do so.
After reporting the crime to two police officers nearby, Holmes returned
with the police to the taxi rank, but the two men could not be found.
Police confirmed that a docket on house robbery had been opened.
Robin Candy, chairman of the Greenwood Park Community Policing Forum,
said Holmes was lucky that she had managed to keep her cool and that the
criminals were inexperienced.
"These were entry-level criminals, and she is very lucky," Candy said.
Candy said it was sad that people took such incidents in their stride
and saw it as "a normal way of life", while people overseas were shocked
at the stories emerging from South Africa. - Additional reporting by
Yusuf Moolla
In Toronto I saw a bumper sticker on a parked car that read:
"I miss South Africa."
So I broke the window, took the radio and left a note that read:
"I hope this helps."
Gingindlovu residents are walking their children to and from school and
asking them to be extra-vigilant after an eight-year-old girl was
dragged into a sugarcane field by a 15-year-old fellow schoolboy who
raped and strangled her, bit her neck and tried to gouge out her eyes.
The child, who cannot be identified, was still in the Ngwelezane
Hospital in Empangeni on Wednesday night after undergoing an emergency
operation. Her right eye was heavily bandaged and still swollen. Doctors
said that she would make a full recovery.
The child had been on her way home from school on Monday with the
teenager, who attended the same school as her, when he pounced on her.
Police spokesman Colonel Jay Naicker said that a teenager had been
arrested and appeared in court in Gingindlovu on Wednesday.
"The suspect claimed that he was possessed by a demon as he heard
voices that prompted him to carry out the attack."
There is one intelligent comment: "What happened to our rainbow nation?
I certainly don't see these poor kids in any colour. The girl will be
traumatized all her life and the boy will live with this guilt, if any,
for the rest of his life behind bars. By the story, this 15 year old
boy is very disturbed and probably lives in a shack with other people
who copulate & rape day in and day out infront of him. It is a shame
that yet another youth slipped between the cracks."
A man was arrested when he tried to get a job from the owners of the
house he had robbed earlier in East London, according to a report on
Tuesday.
The Nahoon Valley Place house owner told The Times newspaper the man
knocked on his front door asking for gardening work on Sunday morning.
"When I opened the door I was surprised because he was wearing our
clothing," the man, who did not want to be named, was quoted as saying.
The job seeker was wearing the owner's shoes, socks, belt, a pair of
trousers and *one of his fiancé's blouses*.
The couple was busy moving and had stored most of their clothing and
linen in a storeroom in the back garden. The owner said after the
robbery he immediately went to check the storeroom and saw it had been
looted, he told the newspaper.
"I could not believe the audacity of this guy. I detained him after that
and called the police, but they did not pitch for 45 minutes," the owner
was quoted as saying.
The man managed to escape but was later caught by a security guard. - Sapa
March 15 2012 at 03:44pm
By Yogas Nair
An Umlazi teenager, accused by relatives of being possessed by demons,
was tortured for three days and then brutally murdered.
Sinethemba Dlamini, 15, was left lying on the lounge floor with her
intestines next to her at her home in K-Section.
Five relatives, who allegedly killed the teenager during a bizarre,
three-day exorcism, have been charged with murder.
KZN police spokesman, Captain Thulani Zwane, confirmed the incident and
said a case of murder was being investigated. "She was allegedly killed
after her attackers accused her of being possessed by demons."
A police source said the accusation of being demon possessed came after
she had become very withdrawn in recent weeks.
Her ordeal began last Wednesday when she returned home from school. She
was allegedly repeatedly assaulted with a broom, the source said.
People believed a demon was living in her and kept hitting her all over
her body with a broom in an attempt to get the demon to leave her, the
source said.
Sinethemba died after her intestines were pulled out through her vagina,
the source said.
After the intestines were removed, they allegedly waited for her to wake
up and be free of the demon. They claimed that by removing the
intestines she would be cured.
Malema went out for drinks with some of the ministers.
After a few hours of drinking Malema calls the waiter to bring the bill:
Malema R400
Cele R250
Mbalula R450
Vavi R200
TOTAL R1300
Malema says, "Hai man! I will pay for everyone else, but Total must
pay for himself! I didn't invite him. Plus he owns a lot of garages
all over the country. He has enough money!"
Nothing interesting happened to me this past holiday...
...but after we returned, my garden boy, of many years, had taken two
weeks holiday, as was the norm.
This of course meant that I had to mow the lawn myself!
So on Saturday I was cutting the lawn on our verge, in my oldest PT
pants and T shirt before I cut the main lawn.
I was in a hurry but wanted to do a decent job, and was not keen on
having any garden boy do it for me on this occasion, and still have to
teach him how I wanted it cut.
But as always, when you DON'T need any help, all the help in the world
is there for you.
Constant appeals as every one who passes by wants to know if you have
some "piece work" for him.
When the fourth one appeared, with his hands in his pockets, and asked
if I had some piece work for him, the conversation went something like
this...
HIM: "Baas, I knows how to cut him the grass, mays I cut it for yoos?"
ME: "Sorry man, I don't stay here, I just work for the people who stay
here!!"
HIM: "Hau, the peoples here employs a whitey in da garden?"
ME: "Yes, and they don't even give me any food at lunchtime!"
End of the story is, he takes out his packet of Kent Cigarettes, and
offers me one.
I took one and he lit it for me, I took about three drags, and nipped
the cigarette and stuck it behind my ear.
As he walks away, I hear him mumbling, "Yisslaaik, the ANC haff really
come and fucked up everything!!"
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