SAPS officials win Khomotso Phahlane birthday party lawsuit

Khomotso Phahlane. Picture: African News Agency (ANA)

Khomotso Phahlane. Picture: African News Agency (ANA)

Published May 25, 2021

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Pretoria - Two senior SAPS officials who organised the contentious birthday party almost 12 years ago for then Divisional Commissioner General Khomotso Phahlane and later accused of fraud must now each receive compensation from the police.

The then Brigadier Sandra Malebe-Thema and Phahlane’s personal assistant at the time, Daphne Moorghia-Pillay, instituted a damages claim against the SAPS and the two officials who had arrested them.

Gauteng High Court, Pretoria, Judge Colleen Collis, has ordered that each must receive about R150 000 in damages for unlawful arrest and prosecution.

The police must also foot the legal costs which the pair incurred in defending the fraud charges against them.

They were arrested two years after the birthday bash in 2009, held at the SAPS Pretoria West Training Facility.

Each had to spend several hours in a police cell before they were released on warning. The court also acquitted them of all charges at the end of the State’s case.

While the two maintained that they did nothing wrong, the SAPS claimed they had used official funds to host the surprise birthday party during office hours for Phahlane at the time.

In the opening to her judgment, Judge Collis said: “An American financier once coined the phrase ‘No good deed goes unpunished’, and if ever there was a phrase more appropriate to describe the trouble which has befallen the two plaintiffs before this court, it would be this phrase.”

It emerged that warrants for their arrests were issued in May 2009, but the pair were only arrested exactly two years later.

Malebe-Thema was arrested while at home and loaded in an unmarked police vehicle. Pillay was arrested while at work and while she was in her SAPS uniform.

The specific allegations were that they fraudulently used police funds to hold a birthday celebration for Phahlane on the same day that a scheduled meeting was arranged.

It was also held against them that they had asked the SAPS brass band to play a birthday song for him during the party.

Phahlane testified that while he was the commanding officer, he was personal friends with Malebe-Thema and Pillay was his personal assistant.

He said nobody ever asked his opinion regarding the allegations against the pair; no internal investigation was held that he knew of.

He said neither of them had ever been accused of any wrongdoing in the SAPS, let alone being capable of the fraud.

He said he did not know anything about the surprise party which had been arranged by them, but he conceded that the celebration did take place during official hours and that the brass band did play.

Phahlane also admitted that the official printed programme had the police logo and a picture of him on the cover, but that he had no knowledge as to who had arranged it.

Both women told the court that the birthday party coincided with a scheduled divisional feedback session, for which the SAPS usually catered. However, they themselves footed the bill for the birthday cake, decorations and programme.

Captain Christiaan Herbst, a member of the brass band, testified that an application was made for the band to perform at the birthday function and the booking was recorded in their books as is the procedure. He said he did not see any other meeting which took place.

A member of the Organised Crime Unit in Pietermaritzburg, Balakrishna Naidu, who was cited as a defendant in this case, said he was told by Lieutenant-General Anwa Dramat to investigate the complaint of fraud regarding the birthday celebration for Phahlane using state funds.

He was told that this birthday party was held during office hours and that the catering was paid from SAPS funds.

The judge commented that the benefit derived from the catering on the day was by all the members present at such gathering and employed by the SAPS, and not only the two officials who were implicated in wrongdoing.

“The inescapable conclusion to be made is that for one or other nefarious reason, the relationship between the plaintiffs and Commissioner Phahlane seems to point to the real reason why the plaintiffs were targeted for their noble actions,” the judge said.

Judge Collis concluded that that their arrest was unlawful and that they were maliciously prosecuted. She said the SAPS had to compensate the pair for the embarrassment and trauma they had to endure.

Pretoria News

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SAPSHigh Court