The Provincial Police structure has commented on the Record’s article about the three girls that were locked in a cage-like room at Roodepoort Police Station, but the mother refutes some crucial claims in their comment.
Provincial spokesperson, Colonel Lungelo Dlamini, wrote the following in the email: “The newspaper remarks regarding the above article is outrageous and depicts police officers especially at Roodepoort Police Station as violent and cruel. It is believed the journalist who wrote the story, did that without any means of getting factual information either from the station commander or the police spokesperson (This is not true as the Record has telephone records, WhatsApps messages and an email to prove that we requested comment) but resorted to this fictitious quote, “Roodepoort Police said they will investigate”. (This statement is also untrue. The spokesperson, Captain Nonhlanhla Khumalo, told the Record she would investigate once she had the parents’ surname and details of the charges they were arrested for. This is an indication of her intent to investigate). Therefore the journalist had a [sic] vague details of the incident and the newspaper continued to publish such information.
Read the initial article here: Little girls kept in ‘cage’ at Roodepoort Police Station
The true facts are as follows:
The couple were arrested by the Florida detectives while they were with three children. They were taken to Roodepoort Police Station for detention. The children were never kept in a police cell or in a “cage”. Immediately when the parents and children arrived at the police station, police called the grandmother to come and fetch the children.”
Also Read: #CagedGirls: SAHRC to step in
The mother of the three girls, aged seven, 11 and 11, countered Dlamini’s “true facts”:
• According to her, she did call her mother from the Florida Police detectives’ offices, but the detective told her he “cannot wait for her mother”. She alleges that once at the Roodepoort Police Station no one called any family again.
• She also claims that at the Roodepoort Police Station the police officer guarding the “cage” refused to unlock it to let her and her children in, based on the fact that he knew it would be wrong to lock up the children but the detective had a conversation with him and he did it nonetheless.
• The mother reiterated the fact that there were criminals in the “cage” with her and her children.
Dlamini also failed to explain the photo clearly showing the children in the “cage”.
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