A Durban woman fought off a gang of robbers who tried to force their way into her home, by hitting them with a pot and flinging glass plates at them.
The men had been fleeing another attempted robbery in Annet Drive, Reservoir Hills, and had fired a shot into the air early yesterday, when Habeba Fynn, 69, opened her door and security gate to throw something in an outside bin.
When she looked up she saw a man running towards her.
She managed to step into the house, but before she could close the door the robber was pushing at it, trying to get in.
A second robber joined him, and then a third, armed with a firearm.
“They were pushing the door. I held it with my right hand and shoulder. With my left hand, I grabbed a pot with oil in it from next to the kitchen sink. I flung the oil out of the pot on to them,” Fynn said.
Fynn, a retired clothing factory worker and grandmother of two, said she screamed throughout the ordeal and hit them with the pot until it slipped out of her hand.
Through the partly open door she then hurled a few glass plates at the men.
One of the men ripped the collar off her nightdress, in an attempt to grab her.
“Every time the men ducked the blows it bought me time to hold on. I just let them have it. Eventually my daughter got up and screamed that she was fetching her gun. The men hesitated, but she repeated the bluff that if they did not move she would shoot.”
Two of the men ran into some bushes, but the third remained at the door, daring Fynn’s daughter to shoot
As the other two exited a dense D’Moss area into Clermont, a police dog caught one of them.
“If I had a stick I would have given them a good beating and a lesson not to interfere with a woman. Reading about crime daily I was fed up. They would not get into my house without killing me. Now I intend getting a hockey stick to crack some skulls next time,” she said.
“If my daughter was not off sick from work, I don’t know what I would have done. My daughter would have been raped if they had got in. Normally the dishes are put away in the cupboard. I had made doughnuts in that oil the night before.
“Visualising the guy holding the gun is scary. God protected me. I beat the enemy. That’s what we should all do, then they will leave us alone,” Fynn said.
Annet Drive has been hit hard by robberies and police had yesterday staked out a pathway through the dense bush separating Reservoir Hills from 39th Avenue in Clermont.
Sydenham police spokesman, Captain Myhen Lazarus said the long hours police spent waiting in the bushes had paid off.
“The arrested suspect was found with a revolver with five bullets. He also had eleven bullets wrapped in a plastic bag and hidden in his socks,” Lazarus said.
Colonel Enver Salie and his crew from Sydenham police station arrested a suspected robber in Reservoir Hills.Pictures: Gcina Ndwalane
SAPS members of the Sydenham police station arrested a man soon after he allegedly robbed a woman in Reservoir Hills at gunpoint. From left are Constable S’yabonga Nxumalo, Constable Lungile Pamla, Colonel Enver Salie, Sergeant S’bu Nxumalo, Sergeant Bongani Dlungwana and police dog Rintie.
Daily News
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