The Bedfordview SAPS said it will show no mercy to those making false reports.
The station has recently seen a hike in the number of perjury cases.
The station’s Detective Constable Mandisa Mokoena recently made arrests and is investigating a case of perjury against a resident.
She told the NEWS the suspect went to the police station and laid a pointing of a firearm charge against a man known to him.
“He said the man also threatened to kill him and his son,” said Const Mokoena.
She said during her investigations, she visited the Eastgate Shopping Centre where the crime had allegedly taken place.
“I viewed the CCTV footage to gather evidence, but what I found was different to the suspect’s version. No one had pointed a firearm at him. The man he accused was at the centre yes, but the two of them did not speak. They did not come close to each other. The complainant [now suspect] had lied,” said Const Mokoena.
Const Mokoena said the man told her he had a witness who could attest to the alleged crime.
She said, “The accomplice has also been arrested for making a false statement.”
She said the suspect and the man he accused of threatening to kill him are not on good terms.
Meanwhile, another officer investigating a robbery case found that the ‘victim’ had lied about the incident.
The man told the SAPS that he was beaten inside a grocery store at a shopping mall in Bedfordview. After viewing the CCTV footage, it was found that the man walked in with another man who he gave a bag to before parting ways.
The Bedfordview SAPS spokesperson, Sergeant Mduduzi Nhlabathi, said false cases not only wastes the state’s resources, it jeopardises other cases.
“If our officers are chasing after wrong leads, they halve the time they could have spent investigating other cases. We will not tolerate such crimes as a station. We will deal with such cases in a harsh manner,” he said.
