Ballykissangel star Victoria Smurfit shot at on 'Kill a Tourist Day' in South Africa



Lucky escape: The actress was injured by flying glass

Actress Victoria Smurfit has revealed she came within inches of death when a gunman opened fire on a taxi she was travelling in while holidaying in South Africa – the nation that will stage the World Cup in just six months.



The glamorous actress, who has starred in ITV police drama Trial & Retribution and the BBC’s Ballykissangel, was injured by flying glass when the vehicle’s windows were shattered.



She felt a bullet whizz past her as it tore through the cab – ‘tangibly blowing the air’. It hit the passenger window ‘barely half an inch’ from the head of her sister-in-law, Charlie.



Writing in today’s Irish Mail on Sunday, the 35-year-old actress says she was told by South African police the attack was likely to have been a gang initiation ceremony dubbed ‘Kill a Tourist Day’.

Victoria, who plays icy Roisin Connor in the ITV show, said memories of the attack have often left her tearful since returning home. Her mother, who was also in the taxi, had to be hospitalised for minor heart problems.

The shooting happened in Strand Street, one of Cape Town’s main roads, which will be thick with football fans when the World Cup begins in June.

South African police say they are determined to ensure visitors’ safety – yet Victoria claims officers were not interested in investigating her incident.

She says the family were visited by detectives only because a relative happened to meet someone with police connections in a restaurant.

The actress, whose family owns a £500million packaging empire in Ireland, had been in Cape Town to celebrate New Year with her advertising executive husband Doug Baxter, mother Caroline, brother Dermot and his wife Charlie.

The attack happened after the group had left a restaurant in Constantia, one of the city’s most exclusive suburbs, and were on their way to see in 2010 at a party also attended by British broadcaster Johnny Vaughan.



Charlie had been looking out the window at a nail salon they were passing and sat back just as the car slowed to pull off Strand Street. As the vehicle turned, Victoria heard a sharp crack as the bullet hit the window.



Horror: Victoria's Smurfit's taxi was shot at in Strand Street, Cape Town, by a gang. Police say the shooting was likely to have been part of an initiation ceremony

She writes: ‘We all felt it journey past us. Either in front or behind our faces, it tangibly blew the air as it crossed our paths.



‘Blood started seeping out of my collection of veins at the elbow joint. I could see Doug was shiny-eyed. I reached an arm out to him. Thank God, he was fine.’



Victoria, who was in the front seat, said she couldn’t immediately bring herself to turn round to see if the rest of her family were still alive.

When she summoned the courage, she saw how close the bullet had been to hitting her sister-in-law.



Safe and sound: Victoria and husband Doug, who was also in the taxi

‘Barely half an inch from her head was a spider web of shattered safety glass, and a hole,’ she said.



‘Had Charlie still been looking at her nail salon, the rest of us would be now wearing her brain.’ It took her several moments to realise that she had been injured by the shattered glass.



‘I picked out a lump of Doug’s window from my elbow,’ she added.



But when the family reported the incident, Victoria said police simply told them, ‘Yes, thank you’, and hung up the phone.



It was only following the chance meeting in a restaurant a few days later that two officers were sent to take statements.

Victoria said: ‘Apparently what happened to us was a gang initiation. A young man wants to feel he belongs to something, tries to attach himself to a group but has to prove his mettle.



‘It was Kill a Tourist Day. And we were in the way. It is frustrating not knowing who the shooter was. Not as frustrating as it must be for him, unsure if he is now a murderer. Maybe he is only 12.’

She said the incident has had a lasting impact on her family.



Her brother has become obsessed with researching criminal violence in South Africa, while Victoria has been plagued by thoughts of what could have been ‘if the car had gone two miles an hour faster, if the shooter had raised his arm slower, if we had not looked out the window, if we had not tried to turn a corner’.



‘I cry a lot,’ she added. ‘If my mind is allowed a fallow moment, it plays back those last 20 minutes of 2009.

‘But it re-edits for different endings – certificate 18 endings. Not the Parental Guidance one we luckily had. This year could have started as a horror story for us.’

