MOTORISTS are warned to be aware of opportunistic thieves operating at the Che Guevara (Moore) Road and Cleaver Road intersection.
Simone Hulbert and her best friend, Bronwyn Dougall, were driving to Helen Joseph Road at around 4.55pm, on Monday, and had just gone over the Berea Road bridge and stopped in the peak hour traffic in Cleaver Road, just before the Che Guevara (Moore) Road intersection.
“We had the windows down as we were smoking. It happened so quickly. I had looked in the rearview window and seen nothing, then suddenly a guy put his body through the passenger window and put a knife to my neck.
“I put my hand on my hooter and the people in the cars around us, mostly men, stared, but no one helped us,” she said.
Bronwyn gave the man her bag, which was under her feet on the passenger side.
“I thought the best thing would be to surrender the bag before he could hurt us. He just walked off. No one stopped to see if we were okay. It is ridiculous and that people can just watch something like that as if it’s a normal thing. It’s not normal. It’s scary that no one will help in this sort of incident, someone could get hurt and no one acts. But when it happens to them, they will wonder why no one helped them!” she said.
Simone said the thief had been a young man of around 18 or 19 years old. She said he was quite aggressive.
The Bulwer Community Safety Forum held a clean-up operation on Friday night at the same spot where the incident occurred. Simone joined the group and was pleased to find library cards, bank cards and photos from Bronwyn’s wallet, as well as her bag.
“I’m grateful to Bulwer Community Safety Forum for this clean-up. The whole area is such a mess. Although the forum are cleaning up one road at a time, it’s scary what is happening out there. The same thing happened to my fiance a week before, although the thief got aggressive with him,” she said.
Simone has been for counselling and has found talking about the incident has helped a lot.
“I feel a lot better now. It has helped me to realise I need to be more aware, as this happened so quickly,” she said.
