Armed robbers who broke into Teazers boss Lolly Jackson's house didn't have it easy when a naked exotic dancer fought back as they manhandled her.
With only jewellery around her neck, Tanya Tkaehova on Wednesday afternoon used her kickboxing skills to kick and push the men who had entered Jackson's secure Bedfordview property, which has high walls and an electric fence.
But her skills only incensed the robbers. One put his gun on her abdomen and another put his on her heart, threatening to shoot her.
"Then they ripped the jewellery from me, ransacked the cupboard and took my R3 000," the 28-year-old Ukrainian said on Thursday.
Tkaehova was asleep in a cottage next to the main house when she woke up to find a gun pressed against her abdomen, and the eyes of a stranger gazing into hers. The two men, dressed in blue overalls and paramedic gear, had kicked the door open and found Tkaehova and a colleague sleeping.
The women had been at work a few hours earlier at one of Jackson's Teazers strip clubs and were resting ahead of another shift.
While the men manhandled Tkaehova, her colleague sat on her bed shaking, not knowing what to do.
"When they opened her cupboard she asked them not to ransack it as it was full of her dresses," she recalled.
During the scuffle, one of the men took Tkaehova's hand, put it against the wall and hit it with the gun. She screamed, hoping that the men wouldn't kill her.
"I was afraid that they would shoot and kill me and my (6-year-old) son would be without a mother," she said.
When the men eventually left, Tkaehova's colleague called Jackson, who then called the housekeeper, Vivian Khumalo, and told her about the robbery.
Khumalo saw the two robbers, who were preparing to leave the premises. She asked them how they got into the yard and what they wanted. "They said they were there to fix a leaking tap, but when I spoke to them further, they reached for their guns and threatened to shoot me," she said.
When she tried to run into the house, her shoes came off and the robbers took them and then drove off in a van.
Jackson said crime in the country was sad because this was the fifth crime incident in three years to have hit him.
"I have also been attacked at home, where armed men beat me and my wife up - I am sitting with 23 girls and they all want to go home because of crime," he said.
"If they leave, it will affect business and that will also do a lot of damage to the country. They will tell their friends and family that South Africa is a violent country," Jackson added.
The suspects were still at large on Thursday night.
