Man thrown off train: rail agency cleared

The Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa cannot be held liable for the serious injuries suffered by a Mabopane man confined to a wheelchair after he was attacked and thrown out of the moving train by four robbers.

The Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa cannot be held liable for the serious injuries suffered by a Mabopane man confined to a wheelchair after he was attacked and thrown out of the moving train by four robbers.

Published Apr 23, 2012

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The Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa cannot be held liable for the serious injuries suffered by a Mabopane man confined to a wheelchair after he was attacked and thrown out of the moving train by four robbers.

The man, identified in a Pretoria High Court judgment as T Malatje, claimed hundreds of thousands of rand from the rail agency following an incident on April 30, 2010.

Malatje blamed the train operator for his ill-fortune, claiming the train door was open, making it easier for the thugs to throw him out of the moving train.

The 32-year-old man said he travelled on the Metrorail train between Mabopane and Soshanguve stations as he was unemployed and he was looking for work.

He said he found four men in the carriage he got into. Less than five minutes after the train moved from the station, one of the men approached him and asked him for a R2 coin.

Malatje told the man he had no money, but a second man grabbed him and pushed him around. The other two men joined the attack and he was searched. An amount of R350 was taken from him.

Malatje testified that he was tossed around, and thrown next to the door of the train, while the men slapped him. He said the attack continued. He lost consciousness and woke up in the Dr George Mukhari Hospital.

He said if the train driver had closed all the train doors, he would not have fallen out. In earlier statements, Malatje said he was mugged and thrown out of the moving train. He did not mention that the train doors were open. During his evidence in court he insisted that they were open while the train was moving.

A Transnet official testified that although the doors operated mechanically using air pressure to open and close, a strong person could open a door. It would also automatically reopen if it came into contact with a person in order to avoid injuries.

The guard responsible for commuter safety testified that he checked the doors that day and they were not malfunctioning. He said when the train stopped at Soshanguve station he was told that someone had fallen from the train. The doors, he said, were not faulty.

Judge Aubrey Ledwaba said the guard’s version that all the doors were closed when the train left the station was more probable. He said it was clear Malatje was attacked unexpectedly soon after the train left the station and that in the court’s view he did not have ample opportunity to observe whether all the doors were closed.

He said it was possible that the thugs could have opened the doors and thrown him out, so it would be unreasonable to hold the passenger rail agency responsible. - Pretoria News

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