![](https://images.caxton.co.za/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2016/02/08lmneck1_16129.jpg)
AN 80-year-old woman and her daughter were mugged by two men outside Home Affairs in Pinetown this morning, 18 February.
Annerine Stratford-Tuke was assisting her mother, Audrey Moon, with her pension application at SASSA when they received a form that needed to be handed in at Pinetown Home Affairs.
“I came down on holiday from England to celebrate my mother’s 80th birthday on 11 February and said I would help her apply for her pension. I parked my van in the area below Home Affairs and we were making our way towards the entrance when two men came up to me,” said Stratford-Tuke.
She initially thought the two men were going to ask her something and when she asked them how she could help, in unison the two men reached for the necklaces across both the women’s necks and pulled. “They were so brazen. They looked straight at me. They yanked the chains from our throats and started to run away. I turned and grabbed one of them by the T-shirt but lost my footing and fell over a small wall and into the window at KFC,” said Stratford-Tuke.
The staff at the food outlet ran to help the two women and encircled them. “They rushed out to see if we were alright. They were so helpful,” she said.
Stratford-Tuke noted the men were in their early twenties and had stolen three of her gold chains while the robbers stole one of her mother’s chains, snapping a second in half and making away with the one of the sentimental half-moon pendants attached to it.
“There were two-half moons on my second chain. It was given to me as a gift from my husband when we were married 49 years ago. The half-moon that was stolen holds so much sentimental value. It has my husband’s name, Michael, on it. One the back it reads, ‘My life is yours’,” said a devastated Audrey Moon.
She is offering a reward for the return of the pendant.