Durban - A mother and her two grown-up children - who had been kept in inhumane conditions in a police cell overnight, without food and bedding - would each get R95 000 for the damages they suffered, the Pietermaritzburg High Court confirmed on Monday.
Judge Jacqueline Henriques found the amount determined by the Pinetown Magistrate’s Court in May 2011 was correct, despite argument by the Minister of Safety and Security’s legal team that it should be reduced to R15 000 each.
Beauty Mbundwini, 50, and her daughters Antonnella, 21, and Ruth Mtshali, 31, had sued the state for unlawful arrest and detention, and malicious prosecution.
At the time, the mother was a domestic worker and the daughters were unemployed.
Judge Henriques said in her judgment that on January 21, 2009, eight to 10 police officers stationed at the Kwandengezi police station, near Pinetown, arrived at Mbundwini’s home.
They did not produce any search warrants, but Mbundwini gave them permission to search the house. They had been looking for her son Sazisa in connection with an armed robbery matter.
The policeman who led the search allegedly planted ammunition in a vase and told Mbundwini this.
The three women and Antonella’s two children, aged 4 and 11 months, were all put in the back of a police van and taken around the residential area, to different houses, to search for Sazisa. They eventually found him.
The women had been arrested for being in possession of ammunition. The mother had also been “physically intimidated and taunted” by the same policeman who had planted the ammunition in the vase, while his colleagues watched.
The women, and her two children, were put in a cell from midnight until about 4pm. Charges against them were withdrawn two months afterwards.
Judge Henriques said the magistrate had found that the leader of the police team had arrested and detained the women and had no intention of bringing them to justice. He also had no reasonable suspicions, on which he could exercise his discretion, to arrest them.
She said the magistrate was of the view that the facts giving rise to the arrest and detention, the inhumane conditions in which they were kept, and the continual abuse of them at the station, was an aggravating factor which led to his making the award.
Of the argument that the award was higher than in similar cases, the judge said each case had to be decided on its own facts.
She said the state employees had acted with malice, for an improper motive and without just cause.
The Mercury