Durban - When the man who was robbing them asked two Waterfall cousins to drive him home with his loot, they were sure he would kill them afterwards.
The robber held up Brian Powdrell, 64, as he opened the gates after helping his quadriplegic cousin, Lachlan Nicholson, 24, into the car.
The time he spent trapped in the passenger seat of his cousin’s car were the “longest 45 minutes of my life”, Nicholson said on Monday.
The 24-year-old said that because of cerebral palsy, he did not have control over his limbs.
The former journalist turned communications manager for SA CAN (South Africa Community Action Network), said his experience in crime prevention had taught him that being able to identify an assailant was likely to get you killed.
With the robber not bothering to conceal his face, Nicholson said he prayed and made peace with the world, expecting to die at any moment.
The man had ambushed the pair in their driveway on Friday morning.
“After helping me into the car, Brian went to open the gate and the man appeared saying he was looking for a job. We told him we already had someone, then he turned on us and forced Brian into the house after taking my phone,” Nicholson said.
Inside the house, the man picked up a knife off a counter and held it to Powdrell’s throat, telling him to tell his security company on the phone that everything was okay after the home alarm had gone off when Powdrell opened the door.
“He asked for my shoelaces and I took my shoes off thinking he wanted to steal my shoes. But he told me to take off the laces and tied my wrists with them,” Powdrell said.
The “young looking” assailant then went around the house looking for valuables.
“He was asking me where things were - the laptop, jewellery and a safe,” he said.
The unprepared robber initially put items in his pocket, but as he found more stuff to grab, he placed them in a suitcase he found in the house.
Anxious to keep the robber in the house and away from his helpless cousin, Powdrell tried chatting to him.
The cousins had been going to a meeting with SA Can videographer Andreas Matthios, and knew that he would be expecting them.
“I prayed that he would come and at least get Lachlan to safety,” Powdrell said.
But when the robber asked Powdrell to drive him to his house, alarm bells rang in Powdrell’s head.
“I had seen his face and now he wanted me to take him home, meaning I would know where he lives. There was no way he would let us live after that,” he said.
The quick-thinking Powdrell said he told the man he was old and would battle to drive. The naive robber bought his story, much to Powdrell’s relief, and instead phoned a friend on Powdrell’s phone to pick him up.
In the meanwhile, Matthios became worried when a usually punctual Nicholson did not arrive or answer multiple phone calls.
Powdrell said: “The guy’s (lift) never arrived. Instead, I heard Andreas shouting.”
Matthios said that he arrived at Lachlan’s house to find the gate wide open and saw Nicholson gesturing from inside the car.
“I had my firearm and went to the house. I could hear rummaging going on.”
By now, Powdrell had been locked in the bathroom but the robber came crashing back in.
“He jumped on to the toilet seat and ripped the burglar guard from the frame and he was gone,” Powdrell said.
Matthios chased the robber for almost a kilometre, and was seen by a Blue Security officer.
“He went left and I went right. He called for back-up and then there were Blue Security officers everywhere. Within three minutes we had about five vehicles there and contained the suspect in a six-house block,” Matthios said.
Blue Security operations manager, Brian Jackson, said the men’s bank cards, cellphones and cash were recovered during the arrest.
Nicholson said what was most shocking - and a lesson to him - was that the robber was not “menacing”, but instead was of slight build and clean cut. “If I saw him in the street I would not be frightened - and that scares me.”
Daily News