An elderly woman’s nightmare at the hands of “arrogant” cop who arrested her for no reason, will cost taxpayers more than R60 000.
|||Pretoria - A 73-year-old woman’s nightmare at the hands of “arrogant” police who arrested her for no reason and locked her up in a police cell for eight hours will cost the taxpayer more than R60 000.
Pretoria High Court Judge Ephraim Makgoba ordered that the minister of police, in his official capacity, pay R60 000 in damages to the elderly woman, identified only as JLM Combrink in his judgment.
The police also had to pay her R13 886 - the amount she spent on a lawyer who represented her.
She was arrested for being in possession of stolen property, but Combrink had proof that she had bought the water meter and some scrap metal. Although she told the police several times that she would show them the control register in which she noted the purchase, they turned a deaf ear. Instead, she was loaded into a police van, between two officers on the front seat.
Combrink said her ordeal started on January 23, 2008, on her farm in Louis Trichardt. At the time she owned a scrap metal business - CC Metal Merchants.
The police, acting on a tip from a member of the public, arrived at her farm and arrested her and her employee, Eric Mnisi. They said it was suspected that she was in possession of stolen property.
At the time, Combrink had a load of scrap metal on the back of her bakkie which was also confiscated by the police.
She told the police that she had a control register at her business which would verify that she had obtained the water pipe and other items legally. The police ignored her and arrested her.
She was allowed to go and lock up her shop in town, where she again wanted to show the police the register. They ignored her and drove her to the local police station where she was locked up in a cell with other detainees.
Combrink was taken out of the cell to have her fingerprints taken.
She was so weak that her cellmates had to help her stand as she had not had access to her blood pressure medication.
She had to wipe her hands on her clothes after her fingerprints were taken, as she was not given an opportunity to wash her hands.
She was only released eight hours later after her lawyer paid bail.
When Combrink appeared in court, her lawyer produced the control register and the court agreed that the items legally belonged to her. All the confiscated goods were handed back to her.
The two police officers - Senior Superintendents NJ Sivhula and Edward Ramuthuthu - testified that they were within their rights to arrest, detain and take Combrink to court. They told the court that she could not produce any proof for the stolen items.
But Judge Makgoka said while Combrink was an honest witness, he could not say the same about the officers.
“They did not impress me as witnesses. Both were too talkative, long-winded and could not answer questions properly. They appeared to be tough, uncompromising and regrettably arrogant police officers who were in a hurry to do their work and not prepared to wait for an explanation from the plaintiff.”
The judge said had the officers bothered to look at the control register none of this would have happened.
Awarding damages to Combrink, the judge took into account that she had been living in Louis Trichardt for more than 20 years and was well known in the community, both as a businesswoman and a person actively involved in church and welfare organisations.
The judge said she was detained in a cell, could not take her medication and was in such pain that she could barely walk out of the police station after her release.
“She was treated with the uttermost disrespect. To add salt to her wounds she was arrested three months after the death of her son and only three weeks after the death of her husband,” the judge said.
Pretoria News