Durban - Police and state attorney officials should be “hanging their heads in shame” and made to personally pay the legal costs of a woman suing for the “disgraceful” conduct of two policemen who accused her of murdering her wheelchair-user fiancé, who had died of a heart attack.
This was the submission on Monday of advocate Peter Rowan SC, representing Cherylene Pillay, who has lodged a claim against the national police commissioner for R170 000 for crimen injuria and assault and a further R223 000 for jewellery she claims the policemen, identified only as Msani and Khumalo, stole from her.
Her fiancé, businessman Gordon Lowis, who was born with cerebral palsy, had a heart attack in December 2012 in the Victoria Embankment flat they shared.
With his body slumped on the floor next to his wheelchair, the two policemen - apparently suspicious because Lowis was 61 and Pillay 44 at the time - allegedly told her “you know you did it”, threatened to plant incriminating evidence on the body, assaulted her and insisted that the body lie there for more than seven hours until the government mortuary van came.
The commissioner has issued a “bare denial”, claiming to have “no knowledge of the events”. This, Rowan submitted to Durban Magistrate Geoff Abrahams on Monday, meant that they could not run a counter version.
But State attorney M Ngubane blamed the police management for not giving him all documents in time. He said he had only managed to consult the two policemen last week.
According to the pleadings, Pillay was out shopping when she was contacted by her son to return home. By the time she got there, Lowis had died.
Paramedics attended and she called Doves to remove the body. She also called the police, and Msani and Khumalo arrived and allegedly began making offensive comments about her sex life, suggesting that Lowis had “someone on the side”.
When her son objected, Khumalo allegedly took out his gun, saying: “Don’t f*** with me.”
She stepped between the two of them, and Khumalo called her a “bitch” and assaulted her by grabbing her and forcing her on to the couch.
Khumalo accused her of withholding evidence, saying he would “fill the body with drugs” and make sure she got thrown into jail where she would “get it all the time”.
The two policemen searched the cupboards and drawers “under the pretext of looking for drugs or medication” and it was only after they left that she realised the jewellery was gone.
The matter was set down for trial on Monday, but it emerged that Ngubane had not attended a pre-trial conference in August. He claimed he had not known about it, but Rowan presented documentation suggesting he had.
“We are disenchanted about this. The public must not be saddled with the cost of these delays. This is a gross dereliction of duty,” Rowan said.
Ngubane said that he was still waiting for all the documents, including transcripts of an internal hearing which exonerated the two policemen and contents of a police docket in a related criminal matter.
“The delay is not due to the office of the State Attorney. These are difficulties we encounter on a daily basis.”
The magistrate adjourned the trial for later this year. On the issue of the costs order, he said he would not “grasp that nettle” until the trial.
The Mercury