A mother of three had to endure a nightmare in a police cell by sleeping on the cold concrete floor without bedding after she was arrested in church in full view of fellow congregants in 2013.
This was because her former husband claimed she contravened a protection order he had obtained against her.
The complaint against Amali Visser, who lived in Florida, Roodepoort, was that she did not allow her husband, Christo Visser, access to their teenage daughter.
But Visser told the Pretoria High Court that her daughter refused to go with her two siblings to visit her husband for the weekend and she did not want to interfere.
Her livid husband took the police to the church service, which Visser and her daughter were attending, and insisted that she had to be arrested.
He reportedly shouted commands at the police and they simply obeyed.
Visser claimed R100000 following her ordeal against the police, as well as from her former husband.
Judge Elizabeth Kubushi said that while the police were wrong for arresting her and throwing her in jail, her husband could not be blamed for the arrest because this was in the hands of the police.
The police persisted until the last day of the trial before court to dispute any wrongdoing.
However, shortly before the case was concluded, the police conceded that it was wrong to throw her in jail.
Judge Kubushi awarded a punitive cost order against the police.
“I consider the actions of the police - waiting until the last day of trial before informing the opponent of the concession - to be vexatious,” the judge said.
Apart from paying the hefty legal fees, the police also have to pay Visser R80000 in damages for the night she spent in jail.
The husband usually fetched the children every second weekend. During the weekend in question, when he fetched the children as usual, the then 16-year-old daughter refused to leave with him.
He left with the other two children and when Visser and her daughter went to fetch the children on the Sunday, no one responded to the knock on the door.
They then left for church and while the service was on her husband and the police arrived to arrest her.
Church members tried to intervene, but the police threw Visser into the back of a van and took her to the Florida police station.
She was later detained at the Linden police station, before she was released the next day. All charges were withdrawn against her.
Visser said the conditions in the cell were inhumane.
She was forced to sleep on a cold cement floor with nothing other than two dirty blankets, which were inadequate against the bitter cold winter’s night.
The toilet was open and filthy, and created a stench in the cell. There was also no flowing water.
Visser described the incident as extremely traumatic and totally unnecessary.
She is now suffering from kidney problems, which her doctor said was probably as a result of her sleeping on the cold floor in the cell.
She also said that it was extremely humiliating when she was arrested in full view of her fellow congregants.
The judge said there was no reason for her arrest and was of the view that R80000 was fair compensation for spending a night in the cell.