Brave neighbour threatened with gun in Cumberland Park, SA, as he tried to stop alleged kidnap

A MAN who had a gun pulled on him as he tried to stop his neighbour’s former partner from allegedly abducting her and her young daughters says he feared for their lives.

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A MAN who had a gun pulled on him as he tried to stop his neighbour’s former partner from allegedly abducting her and her young daughters says he feared for their lives.

Ibrahim “Shanton” Sinka, 43, said he was relieved his 23-year- old neighbour and her two daughters — aged three years and seven months — were not physically hurt after the armed man was shot by police in Hindley St about 11.30pm on Monday.

Mr Sinka, of Cumberland Park, said he witnessed the man abduct his former partner at gunpoint more than two hours earlier.

Ibrahim ' Shanton' Sinka says he had a gun pulled on him when a man allegedly abducted a woman at his Cumberland Park unit complex. Picture: Tait Schmaal

“When I came back from work last night and I saw my wife and as soon as I put my bag down, I heard a scream and a car speeding by,” he said.

“And I thought, ‘what is happening?’

“I came outside and I saw one guy in a car parked up there (at the end of the unit complex), yelling at someone.”

He alleges the woman — who is believed to be pregnant — came out of the unit and the man sped towards her, almost pinning her to a brick wall.

Two children were sitting in the back seat of the car.

“As she moved along the wall, he came straight at the wall, nearly hitting her,” Mr Sinka said.

“Then he started demanding that she get in the car, started demanding, ‘get in the car, get in the car’ so I rush in to intervene.

“As I rush in to intervene, (he) was still very aggressive and I said to him, ‘what is going on? Please, please, please just leave her’.

“I was trying to talk to him and then he pulled a gun.

“As soon as he pulled a gun, he pointed it towards her and said, ‘get in the car’ and I was about to talk to him, he pointed the gun at me so I backed up.”

He said the man pointed the gun at him while sitting in the car, before he opened his door and stood on the ledge, leaning over the roof of the car and turning the gun back on his ex-partner.

“He came over and dragged her into the car and I can hear the children screaming, crying and crying,” he said.

“She said, ‘no I’m not going, no I’m not going.’ It was a big argument, he was very furious and I think if I tried to intervene he would have pulled the trigger.

Mr Sinka’s wife, Rae-Anne Holloway, 51, said she was on the phone when her husband came inside saying something was happening outside.

“When I came out … he was screaming to get her in the car and I knew it was a domestic violence situation or escalating to a domestic violence situation,” she said.

“He was saying, ‘Get in the f***ing car, get in the f***ing car’ and she’s just saying no and screaming.

“Before then I could hear her say things like, ‘has she had her bottle?’

“She was terrified, absolutely terrified. I hoped we would be able to, somehow with enough people standing around, get her away from him until the gun came out.

“He came round the back of the car and picked her up and pushed her through the driver’s seat into the passenger seat. She was screaming.

“We all just feared for the worst because we knew he would know he was going to be chased. We knew he had a weapon.

“And I’ve seen enough cases where people who are backed into a corner do things they wouldn’t otherwise do.

“We were just screaming at him to leave her alone and Shanton tried to stop it and I know what he can do to protect a woman and I really thought that might be enough until the gun came out.”

Mr Sinka and Ms Holloway said the horrifying incident was “close to home” for them and the pair were in the process of building the first women’s shelter for domestic violence victims in Ghana, western Africa.

Mr Sinka said his mother and sister had been domestic violence victims and it was rife in his home country.

“It’s my passion to build the first women’s shelter in my country so to see this happen in front of you is really traumatising,” he said.

Ms Holloway said the couple were in Ghana last week working on the self-funded shelter, which is being built just outside the capital of Accra.

“It’s something that is very personal to us and to see it play out was pretty upsetting,” she said.

“We’re a little bit blessed here where we have services so I’d encourage anyone that feels threatened to go to the police because they will support you.”

The couple also praised SA Police for the way they handled the incident, from start to finish.

“The thing that blew my mind was how quickly police identified the car,” Ms Holloway said.

“It was not his normal car so we weren’t able to give registration plates; we didn’t even know what type of car it was — just that it was white.

“Somehow, in a really short amount of time, they were tracking him. We just thought that was amazing — they could identify a white car and identify that it was him.

“The police were incredible, the swiftness that they got here, they did miss him unfortunately but the way they acted, the first (officer) who responded was incredible, getting as much detail as he could, feeding it into the radio.

“I could hear the chatter, they were on to it.

“We had so many people here making sure we were OK and getting all the correct information. I have so much praise and respect for SAPOL for last night.”

For more information or to donate to Mr Sinka and Ms Holloway’s project in Ghana, visit here.