I was physically assaulted at an Engen Garage, and not one staff member blinked an eye

Yesterday, on the 28th of November 2017, at around 07:40am, I was assaulted at the Engen Garage on Jan Smuts Avenue, Bordeaux, Johannesburg.

I was driving to work (Caxton Magazines) as normal, and a man in a silver VW Polo in front of me was blocking my entrance to enter the Engen garage.

I hooted at him but he ignored me. With space in front of him, he still refused to move forward, even though I had my indicator on and I had hooted. I then hooted a second time but he did not move and instead waved his hand through his revue mirror to dismiss me. He eventually moved forward, and while I was turning into the Engen I looked at him and he pulled the middle finger at me. I then preceded to pull one back.

Once I arrived at the petrol pump at Engen, I asked a lady to fill me up. Just then, while we were talking, the man in the VW Polo (Registration: DNS 519L) pulled up in front of me (blocking me from moving my car), got out his car, came to my window swore at me, and then back handed me across the face. He then casually strolled back to his car. I started screaming and swearing “help, he just hit me”, “someone do something”. At that moment, another Engen customer got out her car and attempted to take video/pictures of the man who assaulted me. She said to him “I have your picture and your registration and I am calling the police”. He then circled back to the garage (unfearfully) and told her she was welcome to take pictures as he did not care.

That lady/witness named Annalien, was the ONLY person at the Engen garage who helped me. She called the police, and we exchanged numbers before she went to work.

WHILE I SAT THERE CRYING FOR ALMOST AN HOUR WHILE WAITING FOR THE POLICE TO ARRIVE, NOT ONE PERSON FROM THE ENGEN GARAGE CAME TO MY WINDOW TO ASK ME IF I WAS OK. In fact, some of the staff laughed, while others carried on as normal (even reading the newspaper).

Is this what Engen stands for? Is abuse against women really so accepted in South Africa that a company as big as Engen and its employees look at assault as something insignificant?

How sadly ironic that this would happen to a young woman during the 16 days of activism against women and child abuse.

This isn’t my first bad experience with Engen. A few years ago I had an awful encounter with a rude employee at the Engen garage on Elm Street in Edenvale who swore at me. Luckily it was on tape and she got a warning from management.

Needless to say, I won’t be visiting an Engen garage again, and will be sharing this traumatic experience on social media.

I hope you care enough to respond, although it seems your company doesn’t care about its customers at all.

P.S. You have this incident on tape!