Pretoria - The minister of police was ordered by the high court in Pretoria to pay a total of R408 178 towards the maintenance of two children whose mother was shot dead by their police inspector father inside the Makhado police station in Limpopo eight years ago.
The children’s father is serving a life sentence for the murder and the children are now living with their aunt, who is their guardian. While it is not stated how old they are at present, they were mere toddlers when their father murdered their mother.
Judge Jan Hiemstra earlier found that the minister was liable for the financial loss of support of the children, as the late Thelma Mashamba time and again complained about her former husband Freddy Mashamba’s abuse and threats against her.
The judge said the police did not take her seriously enough and did not provide the protection she required. He eventually shot and killed her with his service pistol inside the police station in May 2008.
Patricia Ramango, the aunt of Thelma, claimed damages for the two children she is now raising.
The court was told that Thelma had frequently complained to the police that her former husband had abused and threatened to kill her. The police did not heed her complaints. The station commander confiscated Mashamba’s service pistol, but it was later handed back to him.
Thelma married when she was 17, but the couple had a stormy relationship and eventually divorced. They were constantly fighting over how to divide their estate. A week before the fatal shooting, he wrote a letter in which he said his estate was for his children and not for the vultures. “I will never share my assets. Rather kill or detain me,” he wrote.
He apparently told his former father-in-law that if he lost his property, he would kill his former wife. Thelma laid several charges against him because he allegedly threatened to have her killed by a witchdoctor, assaulted her and sent her threatening SMSes.
On the night before the murder, the aunt got a call from her niece that her ex-husband was prowling the neighbourhood looking for her, and had shone a torch into the home the women were sharing. Ramango, a teacher, was at a school meeting and asked the police to escort her home as she was afraid.
The policeman was “rude and made a fool of her”.
Ramango said she had letters in which the shooter had threatened the family with death and the policeman told her to fetch them. She was too scared to go home using the road and “climbed over various fences to fetch the letters”.
She took them to the police station where the policeman told her “you see, women want what they had not worked for”.
He told her the letter contained no threat and that she should go home.
Thelma also went to the police station to seek help, not knowing her former husband was there. When he saw her entering the police station, he shot her.
Judge Hiemstra said an important consideration in the matter was the risk the state bears when it employs a police officer.
This risk was magnified when the state issued an officer with a firearm.
The situation in this case was aggravated by the fact that the policeman had proved himself to be a volatile character who had repeatedly threatened to kill his wife. The station commander regarded this so seriously that his firearm was confiscated.
For some unknown reason it was returned to him. He added that it was the killer’s duty, as a policeman, to protect people; instead he killed his wife. He ordered the “ministry to pay for upbringing of the children.”
Pretoria News
* Use IOL’s Facebook and Twitter pages to comment on our stories. See links below.