Durban — Two rifles belonging to Pietermaritzburg gun owner Darryl Simons have been returned to him after a close to three-year battle with Mountain Rise SAPS.
On Tuesday, a relieved Simons said he had received a call from Mountain Rise police to come and collect his rifles.
He said he was unhappy with the condition of the rifles.
“They were not in that condition when they were seized, one of the magazines is broken.”
Simons’ rifles and a 9mm Glock were seized by Mountain Rise police after he was charged with assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm, attempted murder, and discharging a firearm in public. The charges were dropped and he was deemed by the court to be fit to carry a firearm.
He had been concerned about the whereabouts of his rifles because of reports that items often went missing from the Mountain Rise police station evidence room.
At the time of investigation, the rifles were taken to eManzimtoti for ballistics testing. Only his Glock was returned to Simons, who claimed he was a dedicated hunter.
Simons had bought the rifles after his retrenchment and was looking at hunting as a way to sustain his family.
“I’d only had those firearms three months prior, I hadn’t even had the opportunity to use them the way they were supposed to be used, to bring income into the house. Not having them was like money lost. When I was fighting to get them back, nobody knew where the rifles were,” he said.
Earlier in February, police responding to a Daily News media query said the firearms were still at ballistics for analysis, adding that they would be released once the process had been finalised and the results generated.
In November, the Daily News reported that cash that had been handed in as an exhibit had gone missing from the Mountain Rise police station’s evidence room. The cash was an amount of more than R100 000, and had been handed over as an exhibit in six bags.
In December, the publication reported that following a tally of the cash in the exhibit room, it had been found that more cash was missing – this time, R120 000. Without detailing amounts, the police confirmed there was cash missing from the evidence room.
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