People who open false cases and are convicted of the crime will pay police back for investigating that case, Durban central police station Commissioner Bala Naidoo said on Wednesday.
”If they don’t pay my money back, I will go back and arrest them,” said Naidoo at a press briefing in Durban.
The announcement came after two people were convicted this week for reporting false hijackings.
”It was the first conviction of it’s kind in the province … and now we are going to recover the money we spent investigating the false case. We will be receiving our cheque of R55 000 from the court shortly,” he said.
Naidoo said there was a steady increase in the number of false cases being opened for hijackings, rape and armed robberies.
False cases of theft of cellphones and laptops were also increasing.
It was revealed in a recent report that four out of five reported hijackings were false.
Those caught were arrested for defeating the ends of justice.
In another case, Naidoo said a woman had reported being raped by a priest and it was later established that she had lied, because someone had told her too.
”People are taking chances with us and we don’t want to see innocent people being convicted for false cases,” he said.
He said police officers in Durban and the courts would teach ”liars” a lesson.
”We have started a new trend … we will create debt for those who lie and open false cases. Once that happens we will work on recovering the money spent investigating that false case from that particular person … and the courts are going to help us,” said Naidoo. – Sapa