Grandmother tortured by thieves
POUR BOILING WATER DOWN HER BACK, THREATEN TO CUT OFF FINGERS
Agrandmother feared for her life when raiders burst into her £7 million (Dh40.11) home and subjected her to a water-boarding ordeal. Francoise Jansen, 73, had boiling water poured down her back after being stripped by the men who threatened to cut off her fingers if she didn’t open a safe.
The two masked men had used a ladder to break into the widow’s house through a bedroom window. They crept downstairs and surprised her as she watched the Olympics on television.
Detective Inspector Jake Nuttall of Surrey Police said: “This was an appalling unprovoked attack on a defenceless elderly woman in her own home.
“Surrey Police is carrying out a thorough and extensive investigation to bring these cowardly offenders to justice.”
After grabbing more than £150,000 worth of jewellery from one safe they demanded she open a second, larger one under the stairs.
But the safe, which was empty, had not been used in 12 years and Jansen could not open it despite remembering the combination.
That led to a terrifying threehour ordeal in which the attackers used waterboarding —
was absolutely terrified, I thought they were going to kill me. They asked me if I had any grandchildren, I told them I had ten and they said ‘We are going to kill you, do you think your grandchildren will miss you?’ I was consumed by fear. It was sheer hell and all I can remember is praying.” F r a n c o i s e J a n s e n Victim
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a form of torture in which the victim is made to feel they are about to be drowned.
The men took underwear from Jansen’s bedroom and forced it into her mouth before dragging her into the en-suite bathroom. They pulled her head back over the bath and covered her face with a towel they kept flooded with water from the shower head.
“They did this to me three times but I just couldn’t open the safe,” she said. “I kept tell- ing them it was empty but they didn’t believe me.”
Jansen, who lives on a private estate in Weybridge, Surrey, told the Mail: “I was absolutely terrified, I thought they were going to kill me.
“They asked me if I had any grandchildren, I told them I had ten and they said, ‘ We are going to kill you, do you think your grandchildren will miss you?’ I was consumed by fear. It was sheer hell and all I can remember is praying.”
Her six-bedroom house had been broken into several weeks before the attack last Friday and Surrey Police believe the raiders had located the two safes at that point.
Jansen, who had spent the early part of the day of her ordeal with friends at the Olympics fencing, said the men first attacked her in the bedroom.
“One of them was forcing my head down on to the bed as the other one went down to the safe,” she said. “He kept saying have you got any money and I kept telling him I didn’t. As I was on the bed I tried to press a panic button, I was an inch away but they saw what I was trying to do and from then they started to get really angry.”
The raiders got a kettle from the kitchen and poured boiling water over her back and arm but Jansen was still unable to help them open the safe.