Patrols increase as crime rises

File photo: AP

File photo: AP

Published Jan 16, 2014

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Durban - Street patrols in Durban’s Manor Gardens suburb have been stepped up after two incidents involving the same group of armed robbers this week.

On Monday night a gang of robbers, one brandishing a crowbar, held up a man before ransacking his Rif Road home.

That same night the robbers smashed a burglar gate and door of another house, in Princess Anne Place, and stole household goods, the Manor Gardens crime watch team reported. It said four men had kicked open the door of the Rif Road home at 7pm. Homeowner John Adamson, 63, an analytical chemist, was in the kitchen cooking when he heard a loud bang. He said the men, their faces partially covered by scarves, stormed into his home.

One of them held him down with a crowbar while the others ransacked the house.

Adamson said he complied, as he feared being struck with the crowbar. “One glance at the crowbar and I behaved myself. I did not make eye contact with them. Normally, my wife arrives at that time so I was panicking,” he said.

The robbers demanded to know where his safe and jewellery were, he said, but he explained that those were taken in a previous burglary.

He said the gang loaded his belongings, including a television set, into a car, believed to be a BMW 3 series, they parked in his driveway and drove off.

The crime watch team said the robbers burgled a house in the same area after they left Adamson. They forced the safety gate, bashed in the door and stole household goods.

The owner was not available for comment.

Since Monday, the crime watch team had stepped up patrols and said it had managed to avert further robberies, because the same car used in the previous two incidents was spotted on Tuesday driving through one of the streets.

Police spokesman Colonel Jay Naicker said a case of house robbery and another of housebreaking and theft had been opened at Mayville SAPS.

Daily News

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