She is well known for her writing about how she was raped, her fight against Aids, her tireless passion for human rights. But this week journalist Charlene Smith found herself on the wrong side of her own polemics.
She was arrested in Johannesburg on Wednesday for violating a protection order brought against her by her former lover, Stephen Quaye, a project and finance manager at a leading merchant bank. Smith said that the violation took the form of an e-mail. The charge was dropped on Thursday in the Johannesburg Magistrate’s Court on the grounds that there was not enough evidence to prosecute Smith.
Recalling events that led to her arrest on Wednesday, Smith told the Mail & Guardian: ”He was on the toilet. I started laughing because he was making terrible sounds, then he came out and clobbered me.”
Smith broke up with Quaye in July after a six-year relationship. Quaye was not happy about the break-up and began turning up at Smith’s house, drunk, she said.
In September ”he came to my house very drunk. He had smashed into another car. His car had to be towed from my house. He spent the night puking in my toilet,” said Smith. It was the next day that the alleged ”terrible toilet noises” incident took place.
”After he hit me I walked out. He refused to let me leave. This went on for six hours until a police hostage negotiating team [came to] free me. I laid a charge of kidnapping and assault, which I withdrew a week later because his family asked me to.
”The day after I lifted it he [Quaye] started with phone calls [that] alternated between him threatening me and begging me to resume the relationship.” On Tuesday Smith was slapped with a protection order by Quaye’s attorneys for ”emotional and physical abuse”.
Then Quaye arrived at her house ”but I refused to speak to him. I sent an e-mail to his lawyer [on Wednesday morning] saying that he was stalking me … the police arrested me [that] afternoon for the e-mail,” said Smith.
Quaye told the M&G that he did not wish to comment.