British woman in South Africa killed after 'inhuman' torture where robbers used a blow torch

A British woman in South Africa has been brutally attacked and killed after robbers broke into her and her husband's house and demanded money.

The attackers entered the farmhouse in Dullstroom in the east of the country in the early hours of Sunday (19 February) while Sue Howarth, 64, and her husband Robert Lynn, 66, were asleep.

But when told there was no money, the robbers used a blow torch on them both, put them into their pickup truck and drove them away.

Johan Pieterse, the manager of the security company that found the couple told the Telegraph: "Mr Lynn was stabbed in his stomach, hands and neck. Mrs Howarth was burned on her face."

Lynn was shot in the neck and dumped in the bush but managed to stumble to the road where he found his wife unconscious with a bag down her throat. After a passerby stopped to help they were taken to a hospital. Howarth suffered skull fractures and never regained consciousness.

Pieterse said it was one of the worst attacks he had seen, telling the paper: "I was fine until I went to see Robert last night. What I saw is not normal... The way the were tortured, it's not human. When I spoke to Robert, it tore me apart. I don't know how he is coping."

Police say they expect arrests will be made imminently.

It is the latest in a spate of farm attacks in South Africa. Afriforum, a civil rights group, said she was the 15th person to have been killed in a farm attack in South Africa this month.

Only a week ago, Britons Roger and Christine Solik were killed in a robbery at their estate in the KwaZulu-Natal province. Also last week, a family of four was shot and killed on their farm in Balfour.