Pretoria - Robbers in a gold-coloured Mercedes Benz who followed two professors from OR Tambo Airport and robbed them when they stopped at their home in Equestria, Pretoria East, nearly cost the SAPS thousands of rand in damages.
While the police were never able to trace the robbers at the time, they spotted the golden car a few months later in Nellmapius. They flagged down the driver Max Shabangu, but when he heard they wanted to speak to him about a robbery, he sped off.
This resulted in a high speed chase during which both Shabangu and the police were involved in accidents. Shabangu was eventually arrested as he lay next to his car on Solomon Mahlangu Drive. He spent a few days in jail, but the National Prosecuting Authority declined to prosecute him.
Shabangu instituted a claim for damages against the police for what he said was a harrowing ordeal.
His claim included R300 000 for the psychological trauma he said he had suffered as a result. He said he was forced to receive counselling for his mental well-being.
But Gauteng High Court, Pretoria, Judge Selby Baqwa said that Shabangu was not an impressive witness, and the police were merely doing their job on the day of his arrest. His arrest followed an incident in April 2018 when Professors Erick Chakauya and David Katerere were driven home from the airport by a driver, Foke Lameck.
They arrived at the gate of the estate where they lived shortly before 9pm. While waiting for the gate to open, men wearing balaclavas approached them and pointed a firearm at them.
They told the driver to switch off the engine of the vehicle, before they robbed the occupants of laptops, money and cellphones. The complainants managed to identify the golden-coloured vehicle’s registration number, and said one of the robbers spoke isiZulu.
The police traced the registration number, but the person said he had owned the car 20 years earlier. The matter seemed to have reached a dead end until a few months later, when the police were patrolling along Love Drive in Nellmapius.
They spotted a gold-coloured Mercedes Benz driving in the opposite direction, and confirmed that it was the one they were looking for. They made a U-turn and followed the vehicle and signalled to the driver to stop.
They showed their police appointment cards when they stopped next to the vehicle. Upon mentioning that they wanted to question the driver about a robbery, he drove off at high speed. The police gave chase, suspecting they had their man; after all, he drove a golden Mercedes and spoke isiZulu.
Shabangu, on the other hand, said he feared the people who stopped in the unmarked car next to him were hijackers, and therefore he sped away.
The SAPS, however, said that if he was afraid for his life, he could have sought help nearby as it was in a busy part of town with people, car washes and spaza shops all around.
Shabangu admitted that he drove recklessly towards the Solomon Mahlangu intersection and hit a traffic light, but explained he was trying to reach a safe place like a fuel station.
He lost control of his vehicle, hit a traffic light and came to a standstill in an open field close to the intersection. He ended up in jail and his golden car, which was smashed up, went to the SAPS pound.
Shabangu not only wanted compensation from the police, but his car back. He also admitted that his vehicle matched in all respects the one implicated in the robbery.
In turning down his claim, Judge Baqwa said there were reasonable grounds to suspect that he had committed the crime of armed robbery, thus the police had only done their job.
Pretoria News