A Johannesburg woman told delegates to an international conference at the University of Cape Town on Thursday how she was robbed of her car last month by ”humane” hijackers — one of whom even gave her advice on how to avoid being hijacked again in future.
Pauline Nossel (68) was a member of a ”journeys through trauma” panel at the conference, which is looking at the work of the former Truth and Reconciliation Commission and its continuing impact worldwide.
She said she and her husband, who lives in a nursing home, were hijacked by three armed men on the evening of October 11 as they stopped outside a friend’s house in Johannesburg where they were to have dinner.
She said she was told to get into the back seat of her car, along with two of the hijackers, and keep her head down. When one of the hijackers felt her sobbing, he assured her: ”Don’t cry, we’re not going to hurt you.”
The hijackers stopped on a deserted road, alongside a ”vast” veld, with no lights in sight, and ordered them out. Nossel said she pleaded with the men not to leave them there, as her husband could not walk, and rather take them to a place they could get help.
The men drove further, then stopped and ordered them to get into a second car, occupied by two men. The driver of the new car repeated the earlier assurance that the Nossels would not be hurt, and apologised for the hijacking, saying they would not have carried out the robbery had they known the couple were elderly.
”At that point I felt a little indignant,” Nossel said. ”I don’t see myself as elderly.”
The driver said he would let them go once his companions — with whom he was in cellphone contact — had found and disabled the tracking device in their car.
As they drove around, the driver asked Nossel about her children, and in response to her questioning, told her about his own three youngsters. He also complained that he had ”no opportunities”.
”This [hijacking] is what we have to do,” he said. ”I have children, a family to support, and I can’t get work.”
At one stage he and his companion tried to guess Nossel’s age, putting it at 58. ”You know, you’re very nice gentlemen,” a flattered Nossel told them.
They were driving in the direction of Midrand when Nossel suddenly remembered that her handbag was in the boot of the hijacked car, with her ID, driver’s licence and other cards, plus about R40 in cash.
She asked the driver about it, and he promised she would get it back. He took the address of the security complex where she lived, and said he would throw it over the wall.
Later he advised her to buy a smaller vehicle when she received the insurance payout for her car. ”We’re not interested in small cars,” he said.
When, after two hours, he received a call to say the tracking device was finally disconnected, the driver asked where he could take the Nossels. She said the nursing home, as her husband needed attention.
On the way, the driver dropped off his companion at a shop to buy bottled water for the couple, while he continued driving, circling around in empty streets in the area.
When Nossel, suddenly nervous, put her head on her husband’s shoulder for reassurance, the driver noticed in the rear-view mirror. ”He said, ‘I promise you on the life of my child I will not hurt you,”’ she told the conference. The man added under his breath: ”I hope God forgives me for what I have done.”
Nossel said the men dropped her and her husband off only metres from the entrance to the nursing home, ordering them to get out and not look back. It was only once she was inside the building that shock set in.
When a relative, a police reservist, told her not to touch the water bottles in order not to spoil any fingerprints, she was ”reluctant”, as she was still ”in the spell of their kindness”.
The next day she told the security guards at her residential complex that someone was going to throw her handbag over the wall. But this didn’t happen. ”I never did receive my bag. I remain very disappointed. I really did believe he would honour his promise.”
Nossel said she did not like what had happened to her and her husband, and that it made her sad that people had to live in fear of such incidents. She said she understood ”how we got here”, but felt things could and should be different.
”I’m so sad it has come to this, but it can change, and I have a firm belief that it will,” she said. — Sapa