AN AFRICAN holiday turned to terror when a couple wrestled with knife robbers then dodged bullets in a police station riot.

Philip and Mary Congdon were strolling down a main street in Zimbabwe's capital Harare when they were attacked by two robbers.

And while the couple were at the police station reporting the crime a rock came crashing through the glass doors and a burst of gunfire sent them diving for cover.

Mr Congdon, 50, a former RAF Regiment squadron leader who has seen active service in Aden, the Far East and Northern Ireland, is the Prospective Parliamentary candidate for the Referendum Party in Hyndburn.

His wife, Mary, 49, is throwing herself into her work as constituency organiser to keep at bay the memories of their frightening ordeal, which happened shortly before former Burnley man Stuart Gaskell was shot dead in Cape Town, South Africa. The couple, of Hindle Fold Lane, Great Harwood, became crime victims on the first day of their holiday when their rucksack was stolen from a restaurant.

Only two days later on a Sunday morning they were walking back from a chemist's shop only a couple of blocks from their hotel when they were pounced on by robbers.

One of them ripped off his shirt pocket but Mr Congdon grabbed him around the neck, only letting go when he heard his wife screaming as she wrestled with a second robber.

Mr Congdon said: "That was an absolutely petrifying experience. This chap had a knife in one hand and was pulling at my wife's bag with the other. I froze in horror."

The strap broke and the two robbers ran off with the shoulder bag. Mrs Congdon said: "The knife was maybe to cut the bag if it had not been handed over."

Mr Congdon fell heavily as he chased the robbers but his wife managed to get the number of a getaway car parked nearby with the doors open and engine running. The nightmare got worse when they went to give a statement and a mini-riot flared outside the police station.

Mrs Congdon said: "Suddenly there was a lot of noise from outside and an enormous crash as a rock was hurled through the glass doors showering us with glass.

"Then there was deafening gunfire. I dived through some doors absolutely terrified and Philip stood over me."

It was only when they ventured back into the foyer they discovered the police had been firing to disperse the crowd.

Mrs Congdon said: "There had been an incident on the street between South African visitors and local Zimbabweans and that had developed into a mini riot."

The couple said it was only after they had paid for their holiday that they received literature with a brief reference to Foreign Office Advice that theft near banks and hotels in the centre of Harare can be commonplace.

Mrs Congdon said: "The criminals rely on the fact you are tourists and are unlikely to return all that way to give evidence in court."

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