Tom Powell
By Joe Chivers
A FAMILY was held hostage for over an hour while gun-carrying thieves waited for the father to return from work.
The mother and her three children (aged 20, 11 and seven) were handcuffed and gagged while they waited for the Velez Malaga businessman to return home.
The family had to think fast and ‘fight dirty’ to escape the clutches of the attackers, who were wearing military boots and ski masks.
A big fight broke out when their father, who owns a taxi business, returned home with a fourth son, six, around midnight to find the home in complete darkness.
Believing that his family was playing a trick on him he crept in quietly and fought the attackers before being knocked out.
The man, 38, was admitted to hospital with serious head wounds believed to have been inflicted by a log.
According to reports, two men had broken into the property in Almayate Playa at around 10.30 on June 3 demanding that the wife open their safe.
After attacking her, and torturing her with electric shocks, they handcuffed and gagged her and her children.
So serious were the injuries that the man’s wife rushed him to the Hospital Comarcal de Axarquia herself, instead of waiting for an ambulance.
He has various fractures but is understood to be out of intensive care.
The crime is being investigated by the Policia Nacional, but no one has yet been arrested. It has not been discounted that the man knew his attackers.
