Widow wins damages case
APHOENIX widow who was unlawfully arrested, sexually assaulted by a policeman and held in custody for two days has won her case for damages in the Durban High Court.
Durban High Court judge Dhaya Pillay has found the then minister of safety and security (Charles Nqakula) liable for a Phoenix widow’s unlawful arrest for murder in 2011.
This was after the 41-yearold woman was arrested without a warrant, sexually assaulted by a policeman, refused a change of clothes when she started menstruating and then – after two days – released.
The quantum is yet to be decided but the woman is seeking R2.1 million in damages.
The woman, who cannot be named, was arrested at her workplace, in a local mall, in August 2011 and taken to Phoenix police station.
This was in connection with the alleged murder of a local man whose body was found in a sugarcane field.
Police did not allow her to keep her handbag, her cellphone or take medication she was on for arthritis and pain after undergoing back surgery, Judge Pillay said.
“She was detained under appalling conditions,” the judge said.
One of the policeman also took her to an ablution facility where he sexually harassed her. She was so traumatised by the entire experience that she started menstruating and soiled her pants.
Rights
She was refused toilet paper or a change of clothes.
The next day she was transferred to Tongaat police station and the day after that, she was allowed to go.
The judge found the police’s decision to arrest the woman without a warrant was “irrational and unreasonable” and that her constitutional rights had been violated.
“While at Phoenix police station, she was forced to share a cell, a mattress and a blanket with two other women. She slept next to a filthy toilet, breathing in the stench of rotting food and faeces, which littered the cell.
“The conditions in the police cells were in her words ‘inhumane’,” Judge Pillay said.
She added that the woman was not a convict and should not have been punished.
“The conditions of her detention were tantamount to punishment. Her complaint is pitched at the most basic levels of hygiene and adequacy of beds, blankets and toilet paper. The (police) must at the very least provide these basic facilities,” she noted.
She said the woman’s human dignity had been impugned and that her treatment was “cruel and unusual”.
Judge Pillay said the quality of the country’s detention facilities should be a matter of public interest.
“They are a projection of what we are as a nation, and how we will execute on our ‘promissory note’ that is our constitution and the international human rights instruments we ratify,” she said.
“The conditions of detention are not merely matters of private delictual claims for compensation but issues of enormous public interest for which remedies have to be found in institutional reforms”.