‘They stabbed hereach time she spoke’

Dorothy Carlyle, aged 59, was hijacked in her silver BMW, in Cadogan Drive, Durban North, at 2.30pm on Tuesday and was held captive in the boot of the car for what must have been 10 hours of hell.

Her brother-in-law Paul Carlyle, the current Institute Assistant Manager and former Derry City winger, said that whilst the family were hugely relieved at her rescue it’s an ordeal she’ll never recover from.

Police found Mrs Carlyle beaten and stabbed on Wednesday morning, locked in the boot of her car in the KwaMashu area, while her hijackers were apparently boasting to bystanders that they had snatched her.

Mr Carlyle told the Sentinel Dorothy was stabbed with a screwdriver every time she tried to speak and that the only thing that kept her alive was the fact her kidnappers were waiting until 12 midnight to extort more money from her as her ATM limit had been reached on Tuesday.

“It’s something she’ll never get over,” said Mr Carlyle whose late brother was married to Mrs Carlyle but passed away in 2006. “She’s heavily sedated. Every time she spoke they stabbed her with a screwdriver.”

After a shoot-out with the hijackers, police freed Mrs Carlyle and arrested two women and a man. They are looking for two other men.

They kidnappers are said to have been heavily under the influence of alcohol. Several bottles of alcohol and food were found in the car.

Police spokesman Captain Thulani Zwane, said the missing suspects were aged between 15 and 22.

Mr Carlyle said the kidnappers took 2k Rand out of his sister-in-law’s bank account before taking her to KwaMashu and partying with it.

“They took the money from the ATM and partied with it,” he told the Sentinel. “What kept her alive was they had to wait to 12 to get more money,” he said. “After that they wouldn’t have had any more use for her.”

He said the criminals were devious enough to demobilise the tracking device on the car.

Mr Carlyle told the Sentinel he visited Durban for his brother’s funeral in 2006 and that South Africa was a beautiful country but very security conscious.

“It’s a beautiful country and not all people are going to do this but there are a lot of poor people and some of the poor will do anything for money,” he said.

“The houses they live in and even the individual rooms inide the houses are highly secured.”

Mrs Carlyle is currently in hospital recovering from her injuries and trauma.