Durban - The Pietermaritzburg public order police unit allegedly inflicted agony and humiliation on a crime intelligence captain, the high court heard in a damages claim last week.
Captain Paul Williams alleged in court that he was arrested for spurious reasons and held from about 9pm until 4am in September 2011.
On Friday, photographs of Williams’s injuries, taken by the doctor who treated him on his release, were analysed. Dr Michael Smith told the court Williams was agitated, complained of agony, was unkempt and had dirt marks.
There were abrasions and bruises on parts of his body.
Williams had complained that the worst pain was from handcuffs being applied so tightly that the circulation was cut off. Smith said his wrists showed signs of overtight cuffs.
Williams said he suffered from nerve damage, post traumatic stress disorder and depression.
He is claiming R318 000 from the minister and commissioner of police and Captain Mlungisi Madladla, who was involved in the incident. The amount of the claim was separated from the issue of liability.
The incidents arose when police vehicles blocked a street at about 9pm on a night in September 2011. Williams hooted and asked them to move. They ignored him and he remonstrated, shouting “move your bloody vehicles”. Policemen descended on him. One jerked him out of his car while another entered on the passenger side and used a choke hold to get him out.
He shouted that he was a police captain, but one replied that they did not care.
Williams said his hands were cuffed behind his back, he was manhandled and thrown into the back of the van, hurting his face and head.
Lying face down, he was unable to prevent himself from being thrown around, when the bakkie was travelling.
He was taken to a hospital for a blood test and asked for a doctor to examine him.
However, he did not have R300 or a medical aid card demanded for that service.
After the test, his hands were again cuffed behind his back, and he was eventually released at about 4am. There was no evidence before the court that he had been inebriated.
A police witness told the court he had been arrested on the suspicion that he was drunk.
A policeman who testified for the defence said that the treatment meted out to him was because it was the law.
However, Williams’s advocate, Chris Hattingh, said that was nonsense.
He said there was a measure of vindictiveness in the arrest and subsequent treatment of Williams.
Williams said the van driver drove recklessly, apparently seeking rough areas in order to inflict harm on him, but this was denied by the driver.
Judge Peter Olsen reserved judgment.
The Mercury
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