Lawyer sues police for trauma
April 17 2013 at 09:31am
By YOLANDE DU PREEZ
By YOLANDE DU PREEZ
Independent Newspaper Limited
Gerhard van Rooyen
and his wife Natali constantly "re-experienced" the incident,
"resulting in them being on constant alert, withdrawing socially,
experiencing heart palpitations when approached by strangers or police
officers, and avoiding public places". Picture: Yolande Du Preez
Pretoria - Four years after an off-duty police officer allegedly pulled a gun on
a Pretoria couple and tried to hijack them during a Sunday afternoon outing,
the couple are still severely traumatised and suffer from post-traumatic stress
disorder, the Pretoria High Court has heard.
The incident, which resulted in the
death of the police officer, took place on March 1, 2009.
Dr Jacobus Truter, a psychologist who
treated the couple - Gerhard van Rooyen, an advocate, and his Ukrainian wife
Natalia - for several months after the incident, said both had become
withdrawn, anxious and morbid.
They constantly “re-experienced” the
incident, “resulting in them being on constant alert, withdrawing socially,
experiencing heart palpitations when approached by strangers or police
officers, and avoiding public places”, Truter said.
He was testifying in a civil case in
which the couple have instituted a R2.5-million claim in damages against the
police for emotional trauma and wrongful arrest.
The incident had “changed their lives
forever”.
The couple went to the lookout point at
Fort Klapperkop late in the afternoon to enjoy the sunset.
While sitting in their car with windows
rolled down, a white Toyota Tazz, with two occupants, parked next to them and
the driver asked for directions to Muckleneuk.
Van Rooyen assisted the driver with
directions. Moments later, the two occupants got out of the vehicle and
approached the couple. One pulled out a pistol and pointed it at Van Rooyen’s
wife.
Van Rooyen then pulled out his own
firearm and fired a warning shot which unintentionally hit and killed one of
the assailants, who turned out to be Constable Romeo Thabiso Mahlake. The other
occupant ran away. He was never arrested.
Van Rooyen was arrested several days
later and charged with the murder of Mahlake. He was detained at Sunnyside
police station’s holding cells and feared for his life. “I was convinced that I
would be killed in the holding cells… and no one would know what happened to
me.”
The case continues. - Pretoria News
