![](https://images.caxton.co.za/wp-content/uploads/sites/28/2016/04/18srRobar5_51692.jpg)
Diana Howard entered the house through the back door at approximately 11am when she noticed three suspects in the house.
Her friend* (29), her two-year-old child and the domestic worker Francina Fonya (36) were in the house at the time.
Howard says the robbers asked her for the safe keys and she told them the keys were not in the house.
“The more I tried to explain that I don’t have the keys, the more they burnt me with a hot iron,” she says.
She told them she would do anything to get the safe keys for them, and even offered to phone her husband to bring the keys, but that didn’t stop the robbers from burning her over and over.
The three women were tied up with ropes and the robbers took them to a guest room at the back of the house.
Howard says one of the robbers asked the one burning her, to stop.
“They took duck tape and wrapped it around my head and one of the robbers was standing behind me with his hand around my neck, almost suffocating me,” she says.
One of the robbers also stabbed Howard in the neck, allegedly with a knife.
The robbers ordered the three victims to lie down on the ground and searched the rest of the house.
When they realised it was quiet, Howard managed to untie Fonya and asked her to call for help.
Fonya ran outside to call Elize Howard (73), Diana’s mother-in-law, who came to their rescue.
Elize says she was shocked but tried to call her son, Terence Howard.
According to Terence they have no idea how the three robbers entered the premises as the gate was closed.
He claims they must have climbed over the electrical wires on top of the fence to gain entry.
The Springs police responded to the call involving the robbery.
Terence says the robbers took his expensive liquor collection, laptops and cellphones, but he cannot say what else is missing from the house.
* The Advertiser has withheld the friend’s name in order to protect the identity of the minor child.