A North West man who was held in ‘inhumane conditions’ and subjected to extreme bullying by his fellow inmates for eight days after being arrested for violating a protection order against him laid by his neighbour has won his unlawful arrest case and been awarded R220,000 compensation.
The minister of police has been ordered to pay Tshenolo Stanley Khorae the damages, with interest accruing until he receives the full amount.
This comes after Khorae instituted legal action against the minister of police, claiming he had been unlawfully arrested and detained in a case regarded by the court as “distressing”.
Khorae has difficulties with his hands and receives a disability grant. He was arrested on October 24 last year when two police officers arrived at his home and told him he had contravened an interim harassment order laid against him and they were executing his arrest.
The protection order had been laid against Khorae by his late neighbour Moses Moleko. Khorae immediately asked what had happened regarding an assault charge he had laid against Moleko, who had stabbed him with a knife. He produced the documents he had to prove his claim and asked why Moleko had not been arrested.
The officers, instead of addressing his concerns, arrested him and loaded him into the back of a police van. This took place in front of his partner and their three children who were aged 16, 13 and eight. The arrest was also witnessed by his cousin Mtatle Moelwa along with his wife and children.
On arrival at Huhudi police station in Vryburg, Khorae was charged, but his rights were neither read out nor explained to him and was instead issued with a ‘Notice of Rights’ that he read.
He was then put back in the police van and taken to Pudimoe police station, about 30km away from his home. He was locked in a cell with seven other detainees — all of them from Pudimoe.
The inmates then ganged up on Khorae, who was the only detainee from Huhudi. They forced him to clean the cell and wash their blankets, and they confiscated all his meal portions delivered during the day — allowing him to eat only in the evenings.
Khorae told the court that the holding cell where he was kept was divided into sections. The back area of about 20m2 served as the sleeping area, surrounding an open, broken toilet. When flushed, water would flow from the bowl onto the floor and Khorae was forced to sweep out the water as one of his duties.
The front area of the cell was known as the control room, which served as an exercise area during specific times. The shower did not work, so the inmates had only a basin for washing and hygiene purposes.
Because of the consistently applied “Pudimoe narrative”, Khorae was not provided with a mattress and made to sleep on the floor with only two blankets and no other bedding. The floor and blankets were clean because of the duties he was forced to perform.
The court was told that though Khorae is an avid reader of soccer magazines, he was given nothing to read, he was not provided with his medication and his family could not visit him as they didn’t have transport. He was detained for eight days.
“It is a trite principle in our constitutional aeon that a person’s freedom and security are sacrosanct and are protected by our supreme law,” said judge Andrew Reddy.
Taking into account that Khorae was unlawfully arrested and held in inhumane conditions for eight days, Reddy added Khorae had also been “the subject of unrequited attention” of the other detainees, the difficulty of the tasks he was forced to do were compounded by his disability and he had been forced into a “subservient existence” while detained, which had impacted on his overall wellbeing.
He found that Khorae’s rights to human dignity were impugned along with his right to liberty. He said after considering all facts, he believed an award of R220,000 was fair.
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