Gardener wins claim after being arrested for ‘looking like’ housebreaker

A Soweto gardener, who was unlawfully arrested and detained for 13 days in a filthy police cell after a group of men told police he looked like a housebreaker, has been awarded R350 000 damages.

Judge Natvarlal Ranchod ordered the police minister to compensate Tshepo Mzobo, 37, for his ordeal in October 2013 when he was arrested without a warrant and only brought before a court for the first time 13 days later.

Mzobo eventually spent almost three and a half months behind bars after the police added a rape charge and opposed bail on the basis that they had a very strong case against him.

All charges were withdrawn against him when he appeared in court again early in February the next year.

Judge Ranchod said he could not find that Mzobo’s detention in prison after he was denied bail had been unlawful, because the record of the bail hearing and the magistrate’s judgment was not before court.

But he found that Mzobo’s first 13 days in the police cells were unlawful as he had not been brought before court within the required 48 hours and the detention conditions had violated his constitutional rights, including the right to dignity.

Mzobo was constantly threatened and had to fight off other detainees for a flea-infested mattress and blanket in a cell at Moroka police station in Soweto.

The cell was small, filthy and overcrowded and he was only given bread, bitter black tea and dry samp during his detention.

The toilets and showers did not work and he said in court papers he had never been so dirty in his life.

Detainees covered the toilet with a blanket, but the smell was overpowering as the cell was not properly ventilated.

There was no toilet paper and detainees were told their families had to provide it, but Mzobo’s family were only allowed to visit him for the first time three days after his arrest.

The police accused Mzobo of lying when he told them he was a type two diabetic and needed insulin twice a day and refused to help him even after his family saw him coughing up blood.

He was only taken to a clinic and provided with insulin after his aunt phoned someone she knew at the police station.

Mzobo’s gardening work dried up as his clients fear he is a rapist and his elderly mother now has to support him, because he has severe anxiety and depression.