An act of generosity turned into a terrifying ordeal in a High Street office this morning Thursday 26 January when armed robbers took R15 000 from a grieving mother, assaulting her and leaving several people including a toddler traumatised after they were forced to lie on the floor.
An act of generosity turned into a terrifying ordeal in a High Street office this morning Thursday 26 January when armed robbers took R15 000 from a grieving mother, assaulting her and leaving several people including a toddler traumatised after they were forced to lie on the floor.
The incident occurred in the Democratic Alliance's High Street Grahamstown constituency offices.
The DA's chief whip Mlindi Nhanha told Grocott's Mail said some of the party's members to put their hands in their pockets to help an Alicedale mother bury her son.
The woman, whose identity Grocott's Mail is withholding for her protection, had written to the DA asking for assistance, since she couldn’t afford to return home and bury her son, who had died in an accident in Pretoria on 11 January.
"Since we couldn’t use party funds for this, we decided to collect money among ourselves," Nhanha said.
They collected R15 000 for the funeral, which was to be tomorrow, and deposited it into the woman's account.
The woman approached a Grahamstown undertaker to organise the funeral and yesterday came to town with her brother to finalise the arrangements.
Starting off at the undertaker's, she told him she was going to the bank to transfer the money to his account.
"The undertaker said I should rather withdraw the money and pay it in cash," the woman told Grocott's Mail, soon after the incident.
"He took us to the bank and dropped us there in High Street," she said.
"I went in together with my brother and withdrew R5 000 which was the limit. A female employee of the bank assisted us and we went inside the bank to withdraw the remaining R10 000.
"We left the bank and came here to the DA offices, [to thank them for]the money we received from their members' pockets.
"That is where all the drama happened," said the woman.
Nhanha said a few party members and the two-year-old daughter of one of them were in the office.
"We were chatting and it was around 10am. It was not even two minutes after [the woman]came into the office, followed by two men.
Nhanha was at the time handing over cash to one of their members for another reason.
"I was giving one of our members R300 for our strategic planning meeting. I noticed that she was not focusing on me, but was looking behind me," Nhanha said.
"As I turned to see what she was looking at, I saw a man pointing a firearm at me.
"Immediately I took the two-year-old to her mother and they went to hide under a table.
"They asked us to lie down on the floor and we did that.
"They went to the woman and asked for her purse. She gave it to them and they searched it but didn't find anything," said Nhanha.
The woman said after finding nothing in the bag, they threw it at her and started assaulting her.
"They were kicking and pushing me all the time. They asked where the money was and threatened to shoot me in the head if I did't tell them.
"I had hidden the R10 000 and the R5 000 in separate places. I told them that the money was in the purse and they took it again.
"They opened the zip and emptied the purse and they found the R10 000. They asked where is the remaining money and I said its in the wallet. They opened the wallet and took the R5 000," said the woman.
The DA's Darryn Holm said there were cellphones and a laptop on the table, but the robbers had ignored those.
The family is now in desperate straits, because the funeral is tomorrow, but now they don't have money to pay for it.
They opened a case with the police, whom Nhana complimented for their swift response. The robbers also took the R300 Nhanha was handing to a party member.
Nhanha said no one was hurt during the robbery; however, the two-year-old was traumatised.
Grahamstown police spokesperson Captain Mali Govender confirmed the incident and said a case of robbery with a firearm is under investigation.
