Police officers took three hours to respond to frantic phone calls from Olympic gold medallist Ryk Neethling's neighbours, alerting them to a burglary in progress at his Sandton home - only blocks away from the local police station.
One of Neethling's neighbours, who did not wish to be named, believed that if the police had responded timeously early on Friday, "maybe the thieves could be behind bars".
Instead, the burglars made a clean getaway with several of the swimmer's prized and irreplaceable medals, as well as other items.
He said he and other neighbours had tried to call the police after he was informed of the break-in at Neethling's home, a flat in a secured Sandton complex. He accused the police of being a "lazy bunch who do not have the slightest understanding of what they are paid for".
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'Getaway with several of the swimmer's prized and irreplaceable medals' "They just took their time and we waited for three hours without a sign of them. I believe if they had come immediately, they could have caught the criminals," he said.
He believed that the thieves had intended to clean out a number of flats in the complex and had been watching the area for some time, because last Friday there had been a burglary in another flat and a DVD player and a TV were taken.
Early on Friday the enterprising burglars somehow managed to bypass the complex's security fencing and electric gate, then used ties to fix a stepladder between the first and second storeys of the building. They then propped a bed frame up against the wall, to be able to reach the stepladder.
But the bed frame fell over, waking some of the residents. It appears that the burglars, intending to burgle the second storey, abandoned this plan and instead targeted Neethling's flat on the ground floor.
"I am still baffled about how they entered the complex but I think the way the stepladder was positioned, those guys meant business," said a man staying in the complex.
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