MBOMBELA – Members of a well-known local family were brutally assaulted last night in an armed robbery which lasted nearly three hours. Mr Greg (61) and Ms Agnes (60) Duffey were even burnt with an iron and Ms Duffey had to be treated for second-degree wounds. Their son, Allan (33) sustained a dislocated collarbone.
The family’s peaceful evening at home took a turn for the worse when three armed men burst into their living room.
Agnes told Lowvelder she was preparing dinner in the kitchen just before 19:00. She turned to join her family in the living room and walked into an intruder. With a “Kom, gogo” he pulled her into the living room and made her lie down on the floor before tying her up with cable ties.
Greg added that he and Allan had been watching TV when three intruders burst into the room. They were immediately ordered to lie down and one of the robbers hit Greg on the head with a revolver to make him comply.
The two men were also tied up with cable ties, but Greg broke his and was tied with shoelaces and neckties the men had stumbled upon in the bedrooms.
The robbers demanded the safe keys, but Greg said that they had been working late and his brother had locked up and taken the keys. The suspects kept telling the family that they wanted money and that they would shoot them. The three Duffeys were then taken to separate rooms and interrogated.
Greg was kept in the sitting room, where the men kept asking him about the safe. He stuck to his story and kept calm. The men spoke to the Duffeys in Afrikaans but also spoke a few words of siSwati to each other. When they realised that Greg could understand them, they told him to keep quiet and resorted to whispering when they spoke to each other. At one point they plugged in an iron and burned him on the thigh.
“I think they separated us so that I would start to worry about what was happening to my wife and son and tell them what they wanted to know,” Greg said, speaking to family and friends this morning.
Agnes says she was taken to the bathroom and made to stand on her knees in the shower. She told the robbers to take everything they wanted but to please not hurt them.
The robbers fetched her from the shower and took her through the rooms to point out valuables. “I told the robber who had me by the arm that I couldn’t walk properly. My knees were giving me problems and with the time spent kneeling in the shower, they were quite painful,” she said.
The robber then told her where the steps were as they walked and asked her about the items in each room they entered. Since the Duffeys were set to move house in about two weeks, most of their possessions had already been packed. She told the robber so and he took her back to the shower. They threatened to shoot her and burn down the house and burnt her on the arm with the hot iron during the interrogation. She sustained second-degree burns and several bruises from the rough treatment and tight cable ties.
“They closed the shower door and when I heard Allan cough at one point, I knew that at least he was still alive,” Agnes said. She heard the house go quiet and a bakkie start up outside, realising that it meant the robbers were escaping. She pushed open the shower door, and tried to get to her feet, but couldn’t.
Meanwhile, Allan had been taken to his room and when he tried fighting back, two of the robbers started kicking and hitting him. They called the third person and he also got a few kicks in, but kept slipping out to check if the other Duffeys were still securely tied up.
Allan broke his bonds twice before they finally tied him to the toilet with mutton cloth. They also took the padlock from another door and locked the door to Allan’s room with it. The room and bathrooms had spatters of blood as Allan sustained injuries to, among others, his eye and ear.
When they realised that the Duffeys weren’t going to give up the keys, they went straight to the workshop, fetched a portable welder (PortaPack) and tried cutting open the safe. It wasn’t fitted with the correct nozzle and only heated the metal.
The intruders gave up and started ransacking the bedroom, coming across a locked drawer. They broke it open and discovered about R80 000 in cash.
Satisfied that they had found what they came for, they grabbed the keys to Greg’s white Isuzu double cab and escaped with it at about 22:00. They emptied Agnes’ handbag and put the cash they’d found and Allan’s cellphone inside but left the family’s other wallets, cards and other documentation. The robbers also told the family that they didn’t want televisions or computers and didn’t take any electronic equipment.
Despite his many injuries, Allan managed to free himself, escaped through an outside door and untied his mom’s bonds and then his dad’s. Agnes found her cellphone, overlooked in the commotion, and phoned her brother, who in turn phoned Hi-Tech Security, and then the SAPS.
Hi-Tech Security, SAPS, J&M Security and Bossies Community Justice arrived on the scene. Hi-Tech Medical Services treated the family’s burns and wounds.
Allan went to Rob Ferreira Hospital and had stitches on his head, eye and ear and a sling for his broken collarbone. He was still in severe pain on Tuesday morning and went to Nelmed Medicross for further treatment.
Greg said the robbers were very focused, knew what they wanted and where to get it – information which could only have come from an inside source. The family was also worried that the robbers would come back as they still couldn’t find the keys the robbers used to unlock their front door.
At 05:00 today, J&M Security officials visited the Duffy house again after Agnes alerted them that she’d heard a noise outside. The officials patrolled the grounds and checked in on the family, but luckily found no intruders.
Police detectives also returned to the scene this morning for follow-up investigations.
• Read the initial story here
