High Court ruling highlights police incompetence in wrongful arrest case

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a day ago

A rape suspect will be paid R350,000 after police effected a warrantless arrest on mere suspicion nearly a year after the incident occurred and in the absence of further evidence.
Image: AI / RON
A rape suspect will get paid R350,000 by the Police Ministry following a high court order in which the man sought relief for his wrongful arrest.
This comes after police effected the warrantless arrest of the man on mere suspicion nearly a year after the incident occurred, and in the absence of further evidence, which had eventually been added after his arrest.
In the High Court of South Africa at the Gauteng Division, Johannesburg, Judge Stuart Wilson had harsh words for the Minister of Police - a respondent in the matter - after the rape suspect proved to the court that he was wrongfully arrested.
The man was arrested on suspicion in August 2018, having been accused of raping a nine-year-old girl. The incident allegedly occurred a year prior, in September 2017.
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The child's older sister reported to police that the minor girl had told her that the suspect had put his penis in her vagina while they were both at a friend's house the year before.
The sister had stated to the police before the arrest, relaying what the girl had told her. The suspect was arrested on August 9, 2018, while the minor girl was examined by a medical professional on August 10.
The examination confirmed injuries to the girl's vagina consistent with penetration and was confirmed not to be recent, which was consistent with an attack on the girl some months before.
The girl herself gave a statement to the Soweto Family Violence, Child Protection and Sexual Offences Unit on August 11, 2018, in which she said she had been raped.
She identified the suspect as the perpetrator.
Court documents read: 'At the point of arrest, only (the sister's) statement was available to the police. Both the report on (the minor victim's) medical examination and her statement identifying the suspect were only generated after the arrest. (The arresting officer) did not say, in his evidence-in-chief, that he had seen the sister's statement. What the officer did say was damning. He said that he did not need a suspicion of any sort to arrest the suspect. All he needed was an instruction from his unnamed colleagues that the suspect had been accused of a serious offence, together with the sister's identification of the suspect.'
During lower court proceedings, the suspect was eventually granted bail on August 24, 2018. On October 1, 2018, the case against him was provisionally withdrawn. Since then, prosecution has not commenced further.
Judge Wilson said: 'The most unfortunate feature of this case is that a wrongful arrest claim has been sustained in circumstances where the arresting officer ignored or did not take the necessary steps to obtain objectively available material that would have allowed him to form the reasonable suspicion necessary to effect the arrest lawfully.
'By failing to acquaint themselves fully with the material that was available on 9 August 2018 (the date of arrest), and perhaps also by refusing to wait for more evidence to become available, (the arresting officer), together with whomever directed him to arrest the suspect on the evening of 9 August 2018, acted with gross incompetence.
'The cost of that incompetence sounds not just in the award that I am now duty-bound to make, but in the anguish undoubtedly caused to (the minor girl and her sister), both of whom the justice system has plainly failed. Whomever the assailant was, nowhere near enough was done to bring them to justice in a manner consistent with the applicable law. We must do better than this,' said Judge Wilson.
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