Glenvista CPF official response to attempted hijacking saga

MULBARTON – On Saturday March 29 we received information that a resident of Farnham Drive, Mulbarton was the victim of of an attempted hijacking outside his residence. He was able to describe the suspected vehicle involved as a red VW Polo with registration SJG671GP, with three or four African males inside, possibly armed.

We notified our members of the incident and soon thereafter this vehicle was found at a nearby residence in Godalming Street, Mulbarton. Mondeor SAPS and the JHB Flying Squad were immediately notified of the discovery. Some of our community members arrived on the scene at Godalming Street and saw one person run into the house when he realised he had been discovered.

D&D reaction vehicles also arrived, awaiting SAPS arrival, but no entry was made. When the SAPS arrived the complainant was called to the scene, who positively identified the Polo and some of the suspects as those who had moments before tried to hijack him in his driveway.

Various witnesses saw SAPS search the boot of the Polo vehicle. They did not search any of the suspects or the house. They did not take the complainant’s statement down nor did they profile any of the suspects to establish if they were wanted for other crimes.

Mondeor SAPS were more interested in hearing the suspects’ complaints than investigating the matter and defended the suspects’ version that they were merely lost. The owner of the Godalming property alleged that his cousin was driving the Polo and had become lost and merely made a U-turn at the complainant’s property.

CCTV footage provided by the complainant (which SAPS viewed on the day) clearly shows the complainant’s vehicle parked outside his driveway facing his gate. The Polo is driving past and then makes an abrupt stop immediately behind his vehicle, blocking the complainant’s vehicle in the driveway. The complainant informed us that at this point the front passenger reached for something between his legs and started opening the car door, and he raised the alarm.

There were two other men standing next to the complainant’s vehicle, talking to the complainant in the vehicle. The complainant started to reverse his vehicle to ram the suspect vehicle positioned behind him. At this stage only did the Polo reverse and make a U-turn. Moments later the same Polo drives past the house again. The complainant never alleged he was held at gunpoint as stated by SAPS, but certainly the actions of the Polo and its occupants, captured on CCTV, will make any resident fear the worst.

The Godalming Road resident’s version that his cousin was merely lost, does not explain the classic hijack manoeuvre when he stops the Polo behind the resident’s vehicle. Nor can he refute the complainant’s evidence of what he saw, as he was not there. Nor does it explain why one suspect ran into the house. Certainly the driver of the Polo and occupants should have been investigated. At worst this was an attempted hijacking. At best it constitutes the crime of intimidation. If the Godalming resident feels aggrieved that law enforcement was summoned to his residence, he should rather look to his errant cousin and not others for his misfortune. Any legal action which the Godalming resident has intimated, will be met and an appropriate cost order against him obtained, inter alia, on the basis that any publication was in the public interest.

Nor is this a case of mistaken identity as the complainant came to the scene and positively identified the suspect vehicle and its occupants.

The next day (as the SAPS members on scene refused to do so) the complainant tried to open a case at Mondeor SAPS, and was told by a uniformed Warrant Officer that he won’t open the case for him. Only after our intervention a Lt Col had to meet the complainant at the station to open the case.

At the time of this writing the investigating officer had still not viewed much less obtained a copy of the CCTV footage nor interviewed the other witnesses nor obtained their statements.

On the other hand it seems Mondeor SAPS are bending over backwards to assist the suspects. On April 2, 2014 Mondeor detectives arrived at the offices of D&D Tactical presumably to arrest their operations manager for an alleged incident that occurred between the same suspects and D&D officers in November 2013.

Serious doubt plagues any complainant that lays a charge some five months after the fact in reaction to charges against himself. The speed with which the Mondeor SAPS investigation progressed with these suspects as complainants is astonishing compared to the lack of willingness in investigating the Saturday incident against them.

It appears to us that Mondeor SAPS are shielding these suspects from proposed investigation and we are accordingly requesting the intervention of the Provincial Police Commissioner in this matter, as we believe the investigation should be conducted by provincial detectives.