Westville family escapes home invasion
Numerous contact crimes were reported throughout the Highway area recently.
A WESTVILLE family was lucky to escape unscathed after a gang of knife wielding robbers invaded their home last week.
According to Blue Security, this was one of several contact crimes, including two hijackings and an attempted hijacking, that took place in the Highway area recently.
Brian Jackson, the operations manager at the company, said three men armed with knives forced open a bedroom window on a property in Methven Road at 5am on Thursday morning. “The robbers tied up the resident and searched the property for items to steal and then fled with several laptops,” he said. Westville SAPS attended the scene of the crime.
Jackson said there were two hijackings in Pinetown on Friday. In one incident, an armed hijacker held up a motorist at 6am outside a property in Henwood Road and fled in his Chevrolet bakkie, which also contained the motorist’s iPad, cellphone and laptop. The vehicle was later recovered in Bulwer Road in Glenwood. “In the second hijacking a motorist’s blue Opel Corsa was stolen just before 7am outside her property in Oppenheimer Road,” he said. The Pinetown SAPS attended both of the crime scenes.
Jackson said a third Pinetown resident thwarted a hijacking after robbers tried to jump over his wall in a bid to hijack him at around 5.30pm. “What these latest incidents confirm, once again, is that the most vulnerable time for hijackings is in the morning and the evening when people are arriving and leaving their homes and offices. We urge motorists to be vigilant before stopping at the gate or reversing out. Criminals are lurking in the suburbs and are waiting for an opportune moment to strike.”
“Report any suspicious behaviour or vehicles to your neighbourhood watch group, the police and your security company as this could prevent a crime and also help the authorities to identify criminals who may have already committed crimes in surrounding areas,” he concluded.
