|
Police
Stupidity gets woman Payout
Mr
Malema’ confusion gets woman R65 000
|
|
A PRETORIA woman’s retort to police that she was going to phone “Mr
Malema” after an altercation with them has ended in the Pretoria Regional
Court ordering the minister of police to pay Mashudu Malema R65 000.
Mashudu, 24, spent 11 hours in a police cell after she was arrested when SAPS members became upset with her when she videotaped them on her phone and after she told them she was going to phone her father, “Mr Malema”. Mashudu had wanted to phone her father – Mr Malema – as he had some knowledge of the law and she was scared. The arresting officers, however, assumed she was referring to EFF leader Julius Malema. The incident happened on September 11, 2012 when she and her then boyfriend, identified in court papers as Thabo, were stopped by the police near the McDonald’s at Willows Crossing shopping centre. According to court papers, the police told Thabo they had smelt alcohol on his breath and that he should get back into his vehicle and follow them to take a breathalyser test. On their way to what she assumed to be a police station, the police stopped outside a building near the Virgin Active gym in Faerie Glen and told Mashudu and her boyfriend to park their car. She then decided to video-record on her phone what was happening. The police told her to stop and became very aggressive, which made her afraid, she submitted. Mashudu, an administrator, was told that the videotaping amounted to crimen injuria and that her “reference to ‘Malema’ amounted to political interference”. “I never told them my father was Julius Malema. They only assumed it was. I was shoved into a police vehicle and taken to Garsfontein police station, where I was placed in a dirty, bloodstained cell,” she said in court papers. Mashudu remained there for 11 hours until a warrant officer told her she was free to go home. While the police denied any wrongdoing or any knowledge regarding the incident, on Friday they agreed to pay the damages before the matter went on trial in the regional court. By Zelda Venter The Star 17/02/14 Early Edition |
First
headline “Police Stupidity gets woman Payout” mine
