ZELDA VENTER
NEARLY 13 years ago, a then six-year-old child witnessed the police torture and humiliate his father at the premises where his grandparents' lived, and this had emotionally scarred him to such an extent that he had now, as a young man, instituted a damages claim against the police.
Tshililo Mulimo turned to the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria, where he told the court that he will never forget what the SAPS had done to his father that day in 2012.
His father had previously instituted a claim against the police for unlawful arrest and assault. Without accepting liability, the SAPS at the time agreed to pay R350,000 in compensation to the father.
In his claim, Mulimo, who had now turned 18 and could institute his own claim, testified that in October 2012, he was playing football in an open field next to his grandparents' property. He saw his father arriving home with the police.
He was handcuffed, and the police dragged him towards the pit toilet in the yard. The then-six-year-old stopped playing and walked towards the scene. He positioned himself along a footpath and watched what was happening.
He saw the police assaulting and kicking his father. At the pit toilet, he saw the officers digging a hole. He saw them filling the hole halfway with human excrement from the toilet, and his father was ordered to enter the hole, feet first.
Mulimo recalled that one of his father’s arms was uncuffed while the officers kept on shouting at him. He saw his father using a shovel to excavate excrement and other waste around the toilet, but he had no idea what was going on.
He said as a little boy, he was shocked and cried in terror. To make matters worse, the community stood watching what was happening to his father but did nothing to help.
His father was then taken away by the police and only released at a later stage.
Mulimo said he still has nightmares thinking about that day, and as a little child, he constantly feared that the police would return for his father. He said he still experiences mental trauma about what had happened to his father.
A police officer who worked in Makhado testified that although he was not involved and only took pictures on that day, the arrest of the father was in regard to a missing firearm.
He recalled that the officers forced the father into a hole with excrement and forced him to search in the hole for the missing firearm.
Although he took pictures of the incident, the pictures were never downloaded as the firearm was never found, he said.
Judge Nomonde Mngqibisa-Thusi said the incident was confirmed by the SAPS photographer. Many in the community witnessed it, and Mulimo’s grandmother also confirmed it. The judge said another affirmation that the incident indeed occurred is the fact that the SAPS earlier settled the claim against them with the father.
She said there was also no evidence to refute the recollection of the then-six-year-old boy, who as a young adult now recalled what had happened to his father.
The judge said the child had to witness his father being kicked and assaulted by the police and forced to enter the hole with excrement. This, she said, was not only humiliating and traumatic for the father, but it was just as traumatic for the then-six-year-old boy.
She ordered that the SAPS had to pay him damages, but she did not stipulate in her judgment how much.