THE fact that a 68-year-old man was beaten and kicked by a much younger man is bad enough. To make matters worse, this man was a sheriff of the court and a representative of the justice system in South Africa.
Although South African sheriffs are not the criminal-chasing, tough bad boys that we see in Hollywood movies, they do form an important part of our legal system. The man who assaulted this particular sheriff needs to learn to respect the law – and his elders.
Sheriff, Steve, was performing his daily duties of serving court documents on people who were disobeying the law. He was required to serve a section 32 on a woman who was not paying her rent. In simple terms, this meant that he was going to attach her vehicle so that she could pay her creditor.
The situation seemed to be under control until the woman’s aggressive husband arrived on the scene. According to the husband, he believed that the sheriff was reaching into his car for his pepper spray and, therefore, felt the need to not only head butt the sheriff but also kick him while he was down.
There is absolutely no way that the woman’s husband could justify his actions. Even if he did suspect that the sheriff had pepper spray, once this poor man was lying helpless on the ground, he should never have continued beating him.
Steve had to undergo extensive counselling and had a massive gash on his head. To make matters worse, he was taking blood-thinning tablets at the time and he is lucky that he did not bleed to death.
Steve was awarded more than R70 000 for damages, but this incident has left him with post-traumatic stress disorder and he is constantly fearful of the people he has to face every day in his line of work.
There seems to be a general culture of disrespect in this country. Not only do we tend to belittle and criticise those who enforce the law, but we also have a serious disregard for human rights.
We need to realise that sheriffs are simply carrying a message and it is never okay to shoot the messenger.
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