Kloof pupil kidnapped by school’s neighbour

A KLOOF High School pupil is struggling to recover from a traumatic one-hour kidnapping ordeal after he retrieved a ball from a property neighbouring the school.

His mother, who did not want to be named to protect the identity of her 14-year-old son, told Highway Mail that although he has been seeing a psychologist, the teen is struggling to come to terms with the traumatic event in which a man kidnapped him and threatened to kill him on Tuesday, 3 February.

The teenager was practising cricket on the school field last week when the cricket ball went over the school’s boundary wall and landed in a neighbouring property. After his coach tried to grab the house owner’s attention, he then asked the teen to jump over the wall and recover the ball.

“We’d like to thank my son’s cricket coach for contacting the police when he realised my son was not returning. He did everything he could to help at the time,” the relieved mother said.

A gardener on the property spotted the youngster as he climbed over the fence and then notified the property owner, who ran outside and shouted at the teen.

According to his mother, the owner told the teenager to wait at the front door: “My son thought the home owner was going to let him out through the front door, but instead the man forced him into his car and drove him around for an hour, threatening to take him to his friends in the township and that he would kill him.”

According to the teen’s mother, the property owner then contacted the teenager’s grandmother, who was at home at the time, and told her that he had taken her grandson. “My mother then called me at work and told me what happened. I was petrified and beside myself, but I knew I had to pull myself together for the sake of my son’s safety. I had just left work when I got a call that my son had been dropped at my workplace. I rushed back to fetch him and opened a case of kidnapping at Pinetown SAPS.”

The 38-year-old man was arrested and will appear in Pinetown Magistrate’s Court soon. The school was advised by the Department of Education not to comment at this stage.