Carla Bernando could not stand by and watch as four men attacked an unarmed security guard outside a fast food outlet in Cape Town.

She was driving past KFC in Tokai in the early hours of Thursday morning when she witnessed the assault. Without hesitation‚ she got out of her car and single-handedly tried to stop the men‚ who appeared to be intoxicated.

"They all piled on him‚ kicking and hitting him. When I got out of the car‚ I briefly felt scared … but then the adrenaline kicked in. Something had to be done‚" said Bernardo‚ from Grassy Park on the Cape Flats.

She said her screaming and that of the KFC staff possibly helped to halt the assault. She found it alarming that a man in a Mercedes Benz just looked at her‚ "got his food and left". "He was a huge man and was just watching‚" she said.

Bernardo added that while racism was a talking point across the country and action was being taken against perpetrators‚ the public was overlooking "violence inflicted on a class level". She said the men were driving a BMW and she could deduce that they had money. This is possibly why they felt entitled to attack a defenceless working class security guard.

"I get upset because I see a black working class man being further oppressed by men – who regardless of the fact that they share the same skin colour – still find it fit to assault and humiliate this man."

When police arrived‚ the men sped off.