Mimi Gratton, a well-known hospitality figure in Anguilla, broke down and wept as she related an ordeal she experienced over the weekend when an armed intruder attacked her and her six-year-old daughter.

She told her story to The Anguillian on Wednesday, April 11. They were house-sitting at Teacher Art and Marion Egel’s home at South Hill. The Egels are spendinng their Easter holidays in the United States. Mimi and her daughter had been there since last week Thursday night and on Saturday night around 12.15 the four dogs in the house began barking furiously. They were eventually let out of the house but quickly returned inside still in an uproar.

As she approached the stairs still puzzled at the dogs’ unusual behaviour, a masked man came down with a gun drawn at her head. He grabbed and forced her to the ground and proceeded to tape her arms and eyes and indecently assaulted her. Her daughter tried to intervene and he attempted to strike her, but Mimi took her into her arms and advised her to lie still.

He then tied Mimi’s hands around her back, taped her legs, insulted her and began hitting her many times in her head with his gun. “I felt really bad because my daughter was hearing all this awful stuff,” she said. “He then asked me about money from the house and I told him I didn’t live there. He said ‘where you live?’ and I said ‘Cul-de-Sac.’ He said ‘you lie’ and I said ‘no, I live in Cul-de-Sac with my sister and her boyfriend’ and I told him the name of my sister’s boyfriend because I wanted him to realise we are involved in the Anguillian community because his (the boyfriend’s) name is a Fleming and I wanted him to realise I am not a visitor or somebody who just came here lately. Then I could hear him rifling through my bag and taking things out; and I could hear him smashing and breaking my cellular phones.”

Mini reported how the intruder asked her what was the pin for her ATM card. He took that as well as her credit card. He then asked her some questions and ever so often struck her in her head with his gun. She eventually gave him both pin numbers after he warned that if he didn’t get money out the bank he would return and kill them.

“He then came over and I thought he said he was going to take my daughter. But what he actually said was that ‘I am going to tape your daughter.’ But when I thought he said he was going to take my daughter, I lost it. I didn’t have any tape over my mouth then and I was begging and pleading and screaming not to touch her. He must have hit me five or six times really hard in my head to the point that my ears were ringing and I thought I was going to pass out, but I knew I had to stay conscious for her (daughter). I was so scared. He then put the gun to my head and said ‘you must respect this’. He must have used up the entire roll of tape. He taped up my mouth to the point where my nose and my mouth were covered and I could hardly breathe.
I knew that if I struggled more, I wouldn’t be able to breathe and would be wasting my oxygen so I just calmed down. He then diverted his attention to my daughter and as he started to talk to her, he was far more gentle and far more relaxed calling her ‘baby’. He said “I’m going to tape you up now and I am going to the bank and if I get money out, I am going to untie you…So he taped up her mouth, her hands and her feet and then he left.
“I was thinking I would probably be there until the next day if my sister ever comes by. I was a little bit frantic. I kept mumbling to my daughter and she was mumbling back so at least I knew that she was conscious and wasn’t hurt because she was not crying.
“Probably ten or fifteen minutes later, I heard the dogs sitting right next to me growl a little bit but certainly not the kind of behaviour they had when he first came into the house so I knew he was coming back but I never heard him leave or come back. The only reason I knew it was him was because he came right over us and started talking to my daughter again. He said he was going to untie her and wanted her to untie me. She was so sweet and said to him “I don’t think that I can. Can you take the tape off my mother?” He said ‘I would help you…but you are going to do the rest.’ He came round behind me and I could feel him cutting the tape between my hands, my feet and between my knees; and then I guessed he left, but my daughter didn’t want me to move at all because she was paralysed by fear. She thought he was still in the house.”
After some difficulty Mimi, using a pair of scissors, got the tape off her mouth and nose with the help of her daughter. They picked up all their belongings and left the house.
Mimi discovered later that the intruder had used her ATM card and Credit Card to draw off a total of US$700 from her bank account.
The ordeal, which has enraged many people, left Mimi and her daughter badly shaken, but they are recovering.
She said that the police have assigned some top detectives to work with her.

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