Steve races after armed robbers

Johannesburg - Singer Steve Hofmeyr was in his car in the drive through of a KFC when he saw an armed gang rob the take-away restaurant in Kyalami with an AK47 rifle.

“The one guy stood 2m away from me and looked me in the eye. I just told my children to lie down on the back seat,” he told Beeld on Monday.

He, his girlfriend Suné Meyer and his two sons by actress Natasha Sutherland, Sebastian, 8, and Benjamin, 6, had just paid for their order at the KFC drive through at the Kyalami Business Park when Hofmeyr saw six robbers rush into the restaurant.

One of the men had an AK47.

Pale with shock

They apparently ordered the KFC employees and customers to lie down on the floor and held guns against their heads.

Midrand police station commissioner superintendent Steven Moodley said apart from the AK47, the other five robbers were armed with pistols.

 “I immediately felt sorry for the girls because they were pale with shock,” told Hofmeyr.

When Hofmeyr looked through the window he looked into the eyes of one of the robbers.

Then, during the dead silence that followed and without saying a word or firing a shot, the robbers emptied out the cash registers and the safe.

Chased after robbers

When they jumped into a white Bantam bakkie outside the KFC and sped off, Hofmeyr immediately followed them.

The bakkie had no number plates.

 “At a safe distance, I drove behind them for about 3km, hoping to see police along the way. But at some point I realised there was nothing I could do.

After he called the police’s emergency number, he went back home.

 “My children still slept rather badly last night.”

Moodley said a case of commercial robbery was being investigated.