GunFacts South Africa - Getting Real about Guns!

Refusing to be a victim of crime
By Louise Flanagan July 20 2007 at 06:27AM

"Oh my God, not again." That's what 62-year-old Tim Frayne thought when he realised he was being targeted by hijackers for the fourth time.

But, instead of panicking when he saw three armed men in a silver BMW boxing him in at his friend's Bedfordview home, he drove his 4x4 straight at the hijackers.

Pushing them across the road into the wall of a school's grounds, he noted their descriptions as they leapt out and fled - then helped the police to arrest two suspects.

'Next thing I could see there was this chap with a gun'

The same group is believed to have attacked and robbed The Ridge School's principal less than an hour earlier in Westcliff.

Hours later, businessman Tokyo Sexwale's wife Judy was hijacked outside her son's Sandton school in an apparently unrelated incident.

Wednesday's attacks fuelled concerns that criminals regard schools and parents of the children as soft targets, although police deny there has been an increase in such incidents.

Frayne was visiting orthodontist Dr Patrick Daly, who lives in the road behind St Andrew's School in Senderwood, about 10am on Wednesday.

He reversed his Toyota Prado into the driveway to make it easier to park.

A silver BMW followed him in.

"Next thing I could see there was this chap with a gun."

Frayne reversed, hooting loudly.

"He got a bit confused and I could see the advantage had passed to me. He hesitated, then ran back to the car, jumped in and fired."

The bullet went through Frayne's windscreen but missed him.

"I thought, Oh my God, now they're trying to kill me & I put my car into first gear and put my foot flat on the accelerator," said Frayne.

"I used my vehicle as a weapon."

He drove straight into the BMW, pushing it down the drive, across the road and into the school wall. The airbags deployed and the attackers fled on foot.

Frayne calmly noted what they were wearing and he and Daly, whose son had called the police, gave chase.

Police arrived and Frayne saw his attackers near the Jukskei River. The police arrested two men in their early 20s.

"That's the fourth time I've been hijacked, and now we're leaving. My wife and I have made up our minds, we're going to leave," said Frayne, who wasn't injured but said four attacks were enough.

Daly was held up by armed men a week earlier and robbed in his home.

"The police were fantastic. They swarmed all over this place in minutes," said the orthodontist.

St Andrew's School principal Pauline Jackson said the school's wall was damaged but nothing happened on the school property and pupils were not affected.

"Our security is tighter now."

Captain Cheryl Engelbrecht said a laptop found in the getaway BMW was stolen from The Ridge School's principal barely an hour before. The BMW was stolen in Parkview last month, and a gun found in it was stolen from a house in Norwood in May.

Cobus Snyman, the acting principal at The Ridge, said principal Paul Channon and his father were attacked while driving out of the school grounds, where they live, just after 9am.

A silver BMW with three men in it blocked them off and robbed Channon of his laptop, cellphone and watch. No one was hurt.

In a seemingly unrelated incident, Judy Sexwale was hijacked outside her son's school, St David's Marist College, about 11.30am. Her car was later found at the nearby Thrupps Centre.

Marist principal Rick Wilson said that about 18 months ago, another woman was similarly hijacked outside the school.

She was not harmed and her vehicle was also found at Thrupps.

No arrests have been made in the Sexwale hijacking.

				Bookmark this site!


Getting REAL about GUNS
Home ::: Why GUNFACTS? ::: FCA ::: Crime Trends ::: Gun Control Failure ::: Illegal Guns ::: Legal Guns for Peace ::: Contact