‘Victim of hijack’ faces perjury rap

A Randburg police officer has appeared in court on charges of rape and robbery.

A Randburg police officer has appeared in court on charges of rape and robbery.

Published Jul 6, 2012

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A woman who claimed she had been hijacked to cover up an alleged affair with a younger man has been charged with perjury.

The 63-year-old woman from Letlhabile cannot be named as she has yet to appear in court.

Pretoria Central spokeswoman Sergeant Ann Poortman said the woman reported the hijacking at the Letlhabile police station but the case was transferred to Pretoria Central because she claimed it happened in Francis Baard (Schoeman) Street at about 11am on Monday.

The woman, an employee at the Medforum Hospital in Pretoria, said she was not on duty on the day of the hijacking but went to the hospital to fetch something.

She told police she was apprehended by two young men when she returned to her car. She was instructed to drive to Letlhabile. She was dropped off beside the road in Letlhabile and she reported the hijacking from there.

Poortman said that on investigation, it turned out the woman had not been hijacked.

“CCTV footage indicated that the woman was dropped off at the hospital. She was seen getting out of the passenger seat of the car and entering the hospital.

She returned about eight minutes later and the car drove off,” Poortman said.

The woman broke down during questioning on Wednesday and told police it was not a hijacking but that she had been robbed.

She said she had been seeing a young man whom she had met two weeks earlier. At the time of the robbery she was with the man and did not want her husband to find out about the affair.

Apparently she and the young man had been driving around in her Kia Rio. Her alleged lover stopped to pick up a friend and the friend asked them to drop him in Klipgat.

She told police that it was en route to Klipgat that the two decided to rob her.

“The woman claims the two men took her wallet and forced her to give them her PIN number.

“Apparently her boyfriend dropped her and his friend off in a veld and he left to withdraw money from her account. Her boyfriend returned, picked up his friend and left her in the veld,” Poortman said.

She said it was unclear if any money had been withdrawn from her account.

The woman has been charged with perjury and will appear in the Pretoria Magistrate’s Court soon.

“It is a very serious offence and persons making false claims will face the full might of the law,” Poortman said.

OUTsurance client relations officer Natasha Kawulesar said the most common items that were claimed falsely were household items and items that were removed from the home such as jewellery and cellphones

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Pretoria News

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