Unlawful arrests costing taxpayers millions

Nathi Mthethwa (Image: GCIS)

The case of Sandiso Matu, a 39-year-old father of three, is an example of the many unlawful arrests that have cost the police - and ultimately taxpayers - more than R300m in the past three years.

In January 2009, Matu, a warrant officer in the SA National Defence Force, was accompanying his two children on a bus travelling from Mqanduli in the Eastern Cape to Pretoria.

He was arrested by a police officer in front of his children and the other passengers on the bus.

Matu spent the weekend in a holding cell at the Mqanduli police station, where he slept on a cement floor and was observed by his local chief, who, he said, knew he had been accused of "child stealing".

R130,000 awarded to Matu

Matu, who claimed to have been "humiliated and embarrassed" by the ordeal, successfully sued Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa for R130,000 in damages.

The Mthatha High Court, in the Eastern Cape, noted in its judgment that "domestic problems" had led to an unnamed relative reporting Matu to the police, which in turn led to the wrongful arrest.

Matu made use of previous successful claims, including one by a magistrate awarded R15,000 and a housewife who got R90,000 for unlawful arrests and detention.

In the 2011/12 financial year, 10,552 civil claims were made against the SA Police Service, which was ordered by courts to pay out R37.3m. A further R55.8m was awarded in out-of-court settlements.

Mthethwa's spokesman, Zweli Mnisi, said "the police should be on the street and not in court".

He said once the proposed police university was running in January next year, all recruits would receive basic training that the ministry believed would help reduce litigation against the force.

But a senior researcher at the Institute for Security Studies, Johan Burger, said: "The best way of rooting out [unlawful arrests] is through training. But training will not help those who have already passed through the training. Individual [officers] need to be held personally liable - that is the only way to teach them the lessons they did not learn while training."

Source: The Times via I-Net Bridge