They sang Don't Worry, Be Happy before putting the gun to my head and

JULIE Stevens will never forget the smell. The putrid blend of alcohol and stale sweat as her rapist pushed himself into her with a gun at her head.

Pinned down in the back of her car, unable to cry out because of a filthy gag in her mouth, Julie believed the rape would be the final act before she was murdered at the end of a 14-hour nightmare of abuse and violence.

She could only weep and pray that she and her male friend Tinus Opperman would find a way to escape their hideous ordeal at the hands of four drunken brutes during what should have been her trip of a lifetime to South Africa.

Astonishingly, Julie and Tinus DID escape with their lives. And now, as she faces an agonising three-month wait to find out whether her rapist has given her the AIDS virus, Julie has bravely decided to waive her right to anonymity and tell her horrific story as a warning to unwary tourists.

It is just a week since Julie and Tinus were kidnapped by an armed gang at a beauty spot, tied up, gagged and subjected to hours of torture. Julie, 29, was raped in front of her friend. Tinus was stabbed, dragged through broken glass and pistol-whipped.

Chillingly, the couple were paraded from bar to bar in shanty towns where drunken crowds prodded and taunted them. No one - not even the sister of one attacker and the mother of another - made a serious attempt to free them or call for help.

The couple escaped only because the men were so drunk they dozed off and crashed Julie's Toyota people carrier into a ditch as they sped along a highway.

As the attackers and victims crawled from the upside-down wreckage, one of the men shot dead a Good Samaritan motorist who had stopped to help - and Julie and Tinus fled for their lives.

In the wake of the couple's ordeal, the Foreign Office is now considering whether it should issue a special warning to British visitors to South Africa.

Sobbing as she told the Sunday Mirror of the ordeal, Julie said: "I won't know for three months if I have the AIDS virus. I can't believe life could be that unfair."

In a land where one in three black people are HIV-positive, it is indeed possible that Julie's rapist has given her a death sentence.

"I have barely slept since the attack," she said. "Whenever I close my eyes, thoughts of having AIDS pop into my head. Either that or I see the leering, contemptuous face of my rapist.I have been HIV- tested and I've been given drugs which help to stop HIV from developing, but I'm still terrified."

Reliving the night of her ordeal, she added: "We were paraded around like human freaks to anyone and everyone passing by the vehicle when we were parked outside bars. They wanted to humiliate us. We meant no more to them than a couple of mongrel dogs. They trussed us up and threw a pile of stinking clothes on top of us and tightened the leather cord around our wrists till it burnt through our skin.

"They held a gun to my friend's head and taunted him for hours about killing him. There was blood and flies, intense heat and sweat in the car. For 14 hours we believed we would die."

Julie had left her job in a sales office in Newport, Gwent, and flew out to South Africa only two weeks ago to start a new life as a scuba instructor. She and Tinus had become close friends after meeting on a diving course in Turkey.

She had settled in with him and his family at their home in Sabie, Mpumalanga province - but then they went for a day out at scenic Kruger Park and walked straight into a trap. They stopped their car at a viewing point for the Misty Mountain range - and within seconds four black men scrambled over the cliff edge where they had been lying in wait for unwary travellers.

"They came between us and the car, pointed a handgun at Tinus and demanded all the money we had," said Julie. "We had very little cash, so they were furious. They took our sunglasses and watches."

Tinus adds: "I backed off completely. I thought they'd take the car and go. But they brought out a length of leather cord and tied our hands behind our backs, then they pushed us over the cliff."

He and Julie rolled down to a ledge where they landed on their knees. Later their kidnappers told them they had hidden for four days waiting for "perfect targets" - and they had pushed the couple over the edge to conceal them while they decided what to do.

Eventually they were bundled back to the top and into the car, thrown on to the floor behind the driver and told to be quiet.

They were then driven at high speed from one petrol station to another as the men tried to withdraw cash with the couple's credit cards.

"They were shouting at us and at each other, holding a gun at Tinus's head and threatening to kill him - and getting angrier because they couldn't get any cash," said Julie.

"I kept thinking they would rape me and kill us both. They kept saying they'd killed before and would kill again. They told us not to talk, but Tinus was pleading with them not to hurt me.

"They were sweaty and unwashed. They kept tormenting Tinus, saying white South Africans like his father had persecuted them for years. They spat in his face while they threatened him. 'Please God,' I prayed, 'don't let them kill us, don't let them rape me. Make them just take the money and let us go'."

All through the night, the gang veered from one drinking den to another in the teeming streets of black townships around Sabie, firing the gun out of the car window and occasionally towards each other.

Sometimes friends of the gang joined them in the car, enjoying the spectacle of a white couple tied up and lying cramped on the floor. One elderly woman said she was the mother of one of the gang. At another point a girl called Nellie, who said she was the sister of one of the kidnappers, sat beside Julie and stroked her hair, telling her not to worry.

"She tried to secretly untie the cord around my wrist and whispered that I'd be safe while she was there," says Julie. "But after a while she got out to join her friends and we heard them all laughing. I think they only kept us alive because they wanted cash. We had offered to get some using our cards and PIN numbers, but they wouldn't let us get out.

"After that, I tried to ask about their families but they tied strips of cloth into gags to shut us up. They said we were going to Mozambique.

"By now they were singing along to songs on the radio. One was aughing his head off and singing Don't Worry, Be Happy to us. It was grotesque and terrifying - they were like drunken cowboys out of control."

Tinus adds: "They were so drunk - they reversed the car into a tree and the whole rear window shattered."

At this point, Julie bravely agreed to talk about being raped. Tinus could not bear it and turned his head away, saying: "I blame myself for what happened.

"All I wanted was for Julie to have a good time. When we were hijacked all I wanted was to protect her and save her. I couldn't save her and that's hard to deal with." Julie and Tinus had been left alone in the car outside a bar when the driver came back and drove to a side-street.

Julie said: "He parked and got out, and talked for a while to a black girl he called Angel. He pulled the back seats down and made Tinus lie down on one of them. He pushed me on to the facing seat, and pulled me towards him. I said 'Please, don't' but he hit me really hard across the face and put the gun to my head.

"I could hear Tinus saying 'Please don't hurt her. Don't touch her.' The man was whispering in my ear as he raped me, saying he'd kill Tinus if I didn't shut up. I started to cry. The same man did it again half-an-hour later. I will never forget the sight or smell of him."

THE horror came to a dramatic end when the four men, "paralytically drunk", staggered back to the car and drove off at high speed.

"We skidded around bends and the car was all over the road," said Julie. "I saw the driver nodding off. Tinus and I were wide awake, both praying the car would crash. It was the only thing that could save us."

Within 30 minutes the vehicle had veered into a ditch, overturning. The impact sent Tinus crashing into a window, smashing the glass. Doctors later put 100 stitches into his back.

It was 4.30am when Julie found herself at the roadside next to Tinus. "We saw four black shapes crawling out of the car. A passing motorist drew up and walked across to us. He was smartly dressed and well-spoken. I whispered to him to go back because the men had a gun.

"Tinus and I began to run for our lives. I heard a gunshot and thought they were chasing us, but later we knew they had tried to hijack the car that stopped - and shot our Good Samaritan through the head.

"I can't bear the thought that he was murdered for helping us."

Julie flagged down a passing car and asked the elderly driver to take them to the nearest town and the next few hours were a blur of hospital treatment and police interviews.

"I don't want to hate South Africa, and I don't want to hate black people," said Julie. "We were in the wrong place at the wrong time. I thank God that at least we're alive."

Two men have now been charged with robbery, kidnap, rape and murder. Two other men have been arrested. Julie's mum Evelyn and stepdad Jimmy have flown from their home in Gloucestershire to be with her - and she says she is still determined to make a new life in South Africa.

"I am not going to let this beat me. I don't blame South Africa or the people here. I am going to stay and try to realise my dreams," she said.

Copyright 2002 MGN LTD
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