An unidentified man was captured during an attempted mugging of two young women on Somerset Street on Wednesday just after 10am.
An unidentified man was captured during an attempted mugging of two young women on Somerset Street on Wednesday just after 10am.
According to Corne Naude, a Hi-Tec armed response member who tended to the situation, a man approached the two women near the Ichthyology Department and attempted to take a cellphone from one of them.
When the girls began to scream, two men who work on Somerset Street heard the girls and chased down the suspect. After cornering him, the mugger pulled out a knife and fled in the direction of Pepper Grove Mall.
Meanwhile, the Hi-Tec control room received a phone call and promptly gave chase. The mugger jumped into the ditch near the corner of African and Somerset streets while the Hi-Tec armed response team followed him towards a bridge in Allen Street.
Here he hid until four Hi-Tec members cornered him and forced him to climb out from under the bridge.
The man, who has been on parole for two months facing charges of arson, was arrested by the police on Somerset Street and taken back to prison.
Willie Opperman, one of the four armed response officers who gave chase, said that the two victims are believed to be Rhodes students but were not identified as they left the scene by the time the police arrived for questioning.
According to Naude, a woman at the scene said the mugger attempted to rape the girls but this has not been confirmed.
If you have any information on the incident, please contact Larissa Klazinga on 046 603 8181 at the Dean of Students Office.
