Cape Town – Photographs taken of a man and his friends on a beach on Christmas Day two years ago, with a camera stolen during a house robbery the same day, led to the arrest of two men accused of an armed robbery involving an elderly couple in Montana, Cape Town, the Parow Regional Court heard on Friday.
What the men did not know was that the camera had a permanent picture of the woman victim, which could not be erased.
Police investigating the home robbery recovered the stolen camera, and found the photograph of the woman on it.
The camera also had photographs of one of the robbers, whom the woman was able to identify as one of two men who had robbed her and her husband at gunpoint on Christmas Day, 2014.
The men were charged with aggravated robbery with the use of a firearm, and their protracted trial, in the Parow Regional Court, before magistrate Wezile Rixana, drew to an end on Friday.
Judgment began on Friday, and is to be finalised on Tuesday next week. Before the court were Malusi Tikili, 26, and Cyprian Slaai, 27.
Prosecutor Daniel Cloete alleges that the two stopped at the couple’s home that Christmas Day, in a car that was giving mechanical problems. The woman was outside watering her garden, and they asked her for directions to a mechanic. The woman gave them directions to a nearby mechanic, but the two returned shortly afterwards to say that the mechanic was not home. The woman was still watering the garden, and one of the men asked for water. She went inside to fetch a glass of water and, as she handed it to him, he pointed a firearm at her face.
The terrified woman was taken at gunpoint into the house, where her husband and her son were hit on the head with the handle of the gun, causing them both deep gashes. They were locked in a room, and the two men proceeded to ransack the house, taking a laptop, the camera, cellphones and other items.
They also found the couple’s car keys, and fled in the couple’s car. Police investigations revealed that the car giving mechanical problems had earlier been hijacked, and was used in another armed robbery.
How the police in fact recovered the stolen camera – another intrigue – will only be revealed when the judgment continues.