Cape Town -
The dean of St George’s Cathedral in central Cape Town has been threatened at knifepoint inside church premises and says the church has been invaded by a group of criminals and the homeless.
Father Michael Weeder laid a charge with police in February and fears he will be attacked by the same vagrant, who still sleeps on the church property with his girlfriend.
Weeder complained to the Cape Town central police station in Buitenkant Street and police sent him a case number and the name of the investigating officer, Constable W Cupido.
“I told the police where to find him. It’s humiliating to watch them every day. When I walk past to my car, the man lies in the doorway.”
The dean told Weekend Argus he was shaken by the incident. Two female parishioners had called him, and he found the couple were about to have sex in the parking lot. But when he told them to leave he was threatened with a knife.
“He jumps up like gangster style, you know how the 28s talk. He’s tough-looking. And his girlfriend is high. I walked away. I had to take the chance that he wouldn’t stab me in the back,” he said.
St George’s Cathedral was a venue where numerous events happened during the Struggle, especially when Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu was based there.
Weeder said “prostitutes, transvestites, drug users, the homeless and criminals” used the church’s parking lot as a a place to sleep.
“It’s a little village that’s come up. We’re systematically being pulled apart. It’s terrible.” The cast-iron pallisade fencing around the church had already been stolen.
He said people climbed over the fence between the cathedral garden and Government Avenue and left the property full of rubbish and used condoms.
Church staff and worshippers felt unsafe and uncomfortable walking past such people and past the filth they left behind.
Some people who slept on the church premises were “just innocents who need shelter”.
The church empathised with the plight of the poor, “but not all the poor are angels”, said Weeder.
“We are being invaded by people seeking refuge. Last night they tried to lift a fence, but it was too heavy. One gate was cut off, but they also couldn’t take it away because it was too heavy,” he said.
Police spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Andrè Traut confirmed a case of intimidation was being investigated, but said no one had been charged.
Traut said the area was policed frequently.
Saturday Argus