Mom fights hijacker to save her baby
SHE was repeatedly hit with “a gun” in the face and sworn at by an alleged hijacker who wanted to drive off in her car with her 4-month-old baby still strapped in his car seat.
But she wrestled for the firearm with her assailant until she grabbed it from him. Then she fired at the man – but no shots went off as it was a toy gun.
These were the chilling words of Precious Mbhele, 34, as she recounted how she fought off the man who had tried to hijack her VW Polo in Rosettenville.
Mbhele, of Regents Park, south of Johannesburg, watched in horror as her child fell from his seat and landed on the car floor while the car was in motion, as she and the man wrestled for the steering wheel.
Her ordeal ended only when the car crashed into a wall and her assailant fled.
Mbhele’s agonising experience started around 7.45am yesterday when she arrived at a priest’s house to drop off her child, just as she had done in the past two months on her way to work.
She parked at the gate and got out of the car without switching off the engine. As she was reaching for the baby, who was directly behind the driver’s seat, a man jumped into the car.
This happened while the priest was approaching to take the baby. The terrified priest started screaming.
“Sister Mbhele, what’s going on?” the horrified priest asked.
As Mbhele was trying to unfasten the baby from the car seat, she saw the man moving from the passenger seat to the driver’s seat.
Then the car started moving. Determined to save her baby, Mbhele jumped into the car.
“As he (the man) drove, I pulled the handbrake several times, telling him to stop the car so I could take my baby and my bag,” she said.
“He pointed at me with his gun and hit me with it on my face. When he hit me the third time, I grabbed the gun, pointed it at him and pulled the trigger. I wanted to shoot him, I was ready to kill him. But it was only a toy as no shot went off. I started hitting him, telling him to let me and my baby go. I said I also wanted my bag and that he can take the car.”
But he was determined to take her car.
“He was swearing at saying: ‘B****, leave me.’”
Mbhele said the cries of her baby, who was by then hysterical, spurred her to fight tooth and nail.
“I was not going to let him take everything – my baby, my bag and my car.”
Mbhele said the man had at some point told her that he would stop and give her the baby and the bag, but that he was unable to open the door for her as he did not know that the car had central locking.
Accelerated
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He accelerated again, prompting Mbhele to start hitting him and asking him to stop. This time, she wrestled with him for the steering wheel. The car veered off the road when they reached a street full of humps and “flew”.
It was then that the baby fell off the seat and on to the floor. As the baby cried hysterically, Mbhele held on to the steering wheel. The car then hit a wall and came to a standstill.
Mbhele said she tried to hold her attacker, to stop him fleeing, but he fled while she was picking up her baby.
Paramedics were called and Mbhele was taken to South Rand Hospital, where she and her baby were examined.
Except for a minor cut on her face, she did no sustain serious injuries.
“Even when he drew out a gun I was not scared. But it was only after everything had happened that I got scared,” she said, cradling her sleeping baby in her arms.
“I believe that God was with me all the way.” SANITATION issues have been cited as the reason that dozens, if not hundreds, of cases, had to be postponed at the Randburg Magistrate’s Court yesterday.
It was not the cleaners’ fault that the court shut down yesterday, but rather that of the Department of Public Works.
Since Monday the court has been without running water, and sources at the court said it was because the department had failed to pay the water bill for the month.
It is understood that the holding cells beneath the courts had become so unsanitary because of the inability to flush toilets that some suspects were not brought to court for proceedings yesterday morning. Some lawyers were upset they could not continue urgent matters, including Marco Lamberti, who was trying hard to ensure bail for his client.
Magistrate Hombakazi Thwele said her hands were tied because of the water situation, meaning the man’s assault, rape and malicious damage to property case was postponed to next week.
Court staff said proof of payment for the water bill was received and processed by late yesterday morning and water was due to be turned back on by the afternoon. The Department of Public Works was unable for comment. – Mercury Correspondent