FOUR policemen have pleaded guilty to assaulting two young boys. They appeared in the Port Shepstone Regional Court on Tuesday this week.
The policemen were accused of allegedly hitting the boys, aged eight and 12, with sticks, spraying them with pepper spray and putting a firearm in their mouths in October 2011.
Leonard Ntsikeleo Ncipa (53), Senzokuhle Stanley Zama (32), Cedrick Matika Mthembu (29) and Oscar Msomi (25) were stationed at Gamalakhe police station a the time of the incident.
The court heard that the police officers were on duty when they were summoned to investigate a case of housebreaking and theft in Gamalakhe.
The men were then provided with information of the alleged criminals, and placed the boys, who were apparently playing alongside the road, in custody.
The medical report revealed that the injuries inflicted on the 12-year-old’s shoulder included a five centimetre abrasion, together with bruising on his back, while multiple bruising was found on the eight-year-old’s back.
The policemen’s defence council said the men all have children of their own, and are first time offenders. The officers answered questions put to them by Regional Magistrate Johann Bester. They also publicly apologised from the dock, to the children and their parents, who were sitting in the gallery. Magistrate Bester convicted the men on the charge of common assault.
The men were each sentenced to 15 months’ imprisonment, wholly suspended for five years. Magistrate Bester instructed the men to pay an amount of R2500 per child. The amount has to be paid to the boys’ beneficiaries before April 30.
The policemen were also not declared unfit to possess firearms, as it was not proven that they used their firearms in the assault. The men’s defence council also brought it to the court’s attention that the policemen needed their firearms to carry out their duties.
Before handing down the policemen’s sentence, Magistrate Bester said that when police torture children, there is reason to be concerned. “Through your actions, you have done the police service a disservice,” he said. Magistrate Bester said the police can’t combat crime without the help of the community.
He said when police resort to torture to solve a crime, the public will not assist in the task of combating crime, and this will lead to vigilantism, which can lead to innocent people being killed. “This would happen when the public don’t have faith in the police,” he said.
Speaking to the reporter outside court, the victim’s parents, who had opened the case against the policemen, said their children were told by the men ‘to say their last prayer’ while being assaulted. The family said the boys were also locked into the back of the police van, without any ventilation. Someone apparently heard the children crying, and let them out of the vehicle.
The family was very unhappy about the outcome of the case, as the children had been, and are still, extremely traumatised by the incident.
