Nightmare ordeal for Ballito pensioners
Jannie Smit was confronted by two men – one armed with a pistol, the other brandishing a knife.
14 September 2016
The couple were bound hand and foot with cable-ties and held hostage for nearly three hours.
14 September 2016
The couple were bound hand and foot with cable-ties and held hostage for nearly three hours.
An elderly Ballito couple were attacked in their home this week, tied up, tasered and threatened with their lives – but miraculously lived to tell the tale.
On Monday evening Jannie and Magdalene Smit, a retired couple in their 80s, returned from a short shopping excursion to find two armed men waiting in their home.
As Smit was locking the front door behind him at their Stella Road home, he heard his wife cry out in alarm.
He was confronted by two men – one armed with a pistol, the other brandishing a knife.
The intruders tied their arms and legs with cable-ties, before ransacking the house and demanding money and valuables.
“I will kill you and take your wife to Mozambique,” was the threat leveled at Jannie when he told his captors that there was no money in the house.
Staring down the barrel of a gun, the Smits endured for nearly three hours as the criminals searched the house – periodically returning to the room to assault the pair and even shocking the elderly couple with a taser stun gun.
Shortly before 7pm the criminals finally decided to run. Demanding their car keys, the two men attempted to escape with the couple’s vehicle – only to misjudge the steep angle of the driveway and reverse over a retaining wall and into a palm tree. They abandoned the car and left on foot.
After the men had gone, Smit managed to free his legs and, with hands still bound, headed to his next-door neighbour in search of help.
Meanwhile Magdalene Smit had also managed to get out of the house and began to scream for help in their garden, alerting other neighbours across the road – who untied the bruised couple and contacted IPSS Security and IPSS Medical Rescue and the police.
The couple sustained minor injuries as a result of the cable-ties used to bind them, as well as assorted bruises and scratches from their rough treatment.
However they were deeply shocked by their ordeal.
Magdalene Smit was distraught. “We are peaceful people. Why were they so violent? Why?”
The couple spent the night with one of their neighbours and their daughter, who lives in Pretoria, flew down on Tuesday morning to take care of her parents.
It is not known how the robbers gained entry to the house, as there were no signs of forced entry and all the doors were locked. They made off with a pistol, airgun, cellphones and keys.
http://northcoastcourier.co.za/68799/nightmare-ordeal-for-ballito-pensioners/
On Monday evening Jannie and Magdalene Smit, a retired couple in their 80s, returned from a short shopping excursion to find two armed men waiting in their home.
As Smit was locking the front door behind him at their Stella Road home, he heard his wife cry out in alarm.
He was confronted by two men – one armed with a pistol, the other brandishing a knife.
The intruders tied their arms and legs with cable-ties, before ransacking the house and demanding money and valuables.
“I will kill you and take your wife to Mozambique,” was the threat leveled at Jannie when he told his captors that there was no money in the house.
Staring down the barrel of a gun, the Smits endured for nearly three hours as the criminals searched the house – periodically returning to the room to assault the pair and even shocking the elderly couple with a taser stun gun.
Shortly before 7pm the criminals finally decided to run. Demanding their car keys, the two men attempted to escape with the couple’s vehicle – only to misjudge the steep angle of the driveway and reverse over a retaining wall and into a palm tree. They abandoned the car and left on foot.
After the men had gone, Smit managed to free his legs and, with hands still bound, headed to his next-door neighbour in search of help.
Meanwhile Magdalene Smit had also managed to get out of the house and began to scream for help in their garden, alerting other neighbours across the road – who untied the bruised couple and contacted IPSS Security and IPSS Medical Rescue and the police.
The couple sustained minor injuries as a result of the cable-ties used to bind them, as well as assorted bruises and scratches from their rough treatment.
However they were deeply shocked by their ordeal.
Magdalene Smit was distraught. “We are peaceful people. Why were they so violent? Why?”
The couple spent the night with one of their neighbours and their daughter, who lives in Pretoria, flew down on Tuesday morning to take care of her parents.
It is not known how the robbers gained entry to the house, as there were no signs of forced entry and all the doors were locked. They made off with a pistol, airgun, cellphones and keys.
http://northcoastcourier.co.za/68799/nightmare-ordeal-for-ballito-pensioners/
