Johannesburg metro police officers told Pretoria High Court Judge Nkola Motata that a property owner ”forced” them to arrest him, the Johannesburg Magistrate’s Court heard on Monday.
Metro police officer Paulina Mashilelo testified that this explanation was given to the judge after he was taken into custody.
Motata asked the metro police officers in the police vehicle they were travelling in why they had arrested him.
”He said: ‘Can you just merely arrest me for breaking a wall?’,” Mashilelo told the court.
”I said, there is no one that wants to make peace, and Baird [Richard Baird, the owner of the perimeter wall that Motata crashed into] wants us to arrest him.
”Baird was forcing that we should arrest him [Motata] because he was thinking that he was smelling alcohol,” she added.
Motata is on trial for crashing his Jaguar into the perimeter wall of Baird’s Hurlingham property in January 2007, allegedly while drunk.
Motata is facing a charge of driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs, with an alternate charge of driving with an excess of alcohol in his blood, or reckless or negligent driving. He also faces a charge of defeating the ends of justice, with an alternate charge of resisting arrest.
On Monday, Mashilelo, who has been part of the Johannesburg metro police department since 2002, said she did not smell alcohol on Motata at the accident scene.
She had thought Motata might have been under the influence of alcohol because he spoke too much.
”Judge Motata was speaking too much … when I tried to stop him, as he was busy speaking, he could not stop,” she said.
She said besides his excessive speaking, there were no indicators for her to decide whether or not he was drunk.
Earlier, Mashilelo said police left the accident scene after being told by radio control not to arrest Motata.
”While I was standing with the South African Police Service [SAPS] and listening to their radio, they were informed they should not arrest Judge Motata, and Motata should talk to the owner of the residence.”
Mashilelo said the SAPS officers left the scene about two minutes later. Mashilelo, who was on the scene with her female partner, Frieda Ramefemo, said when she told Motata he would be arrested, ”he replied that he can’t be arrested by females”.
”We decided to call on extra manpower to assist us. We wanted men to help us,” she said.
Later, during her testimony, Mashilelo said she wanted to clarify this issue. ”When I said the judge said we could not arrest him, I was not saying he was resisting arrest. He said we could not touch him because we were females.”
Mashilelo described the scene of the actual arrest as a ”mix-up”.
”There were a lot of people. Mr Motata was seated inside a motor vehicle. [The two male metro officers who had subsequently arrived on the scene] requested him to alight the motor vehicle,” she said.
”[Motata] was still angry, as he was saying things were not coming right as he was fighting with the owner of the house. [The male metro cops] pulled him [out his vehicle] as they did not listen to what he was saying.”
She said they then walked him to the police car, balancing him by walking on either side of him.
Earlier, Mashilelo said after arriving on the scene that Motata addressed her in an unpleasant way when she asked a question about the accident.
”He did not answer in a good way.”
She said he said to her: ”Hey you, you, light in complexion”.
”I did not take it otherwise. I just kept quiet,” she said.
Later, when asked about her complexion during the defence’s cross-examination, Ramefemo said, smiling, she did consider herself light in complexion.
Mashilelo said she had not administered a breathalyser on the scene to Motata, nor did she see anyone do so.
Translation difficulties
Halfway during proceedings on Monday, the interpreter translating Mashilelo’s Northern Sotho answers into English was replaced after the defence raised concerns that her testimony was not being fully translated.
After a new translator was brought in, defence advocate Danie Dorfling asked to clarify certain statements.
For example, the court heard earlier that Mashilelo had said in Sotho that she ”suspected” Motata was under the influence of alcohol. The translation of this was then corrected that she was ”thinking” about whether he was under the influence of alcohol.
Mashilelo agreed with Dorfling, who said this distinction in phrasing indicated that she had not made up her mind definitively about whether Motata was drunk or not.
Earlier, Mashilelo said she took Motata’s driver’s licence at the accident scene and then later gave it back to him in the police vehicle, where he appeared to have left it.
During the defence’s cross-examination, Mashilelo said it was likely that Motata left the licence in the car because he was handcuffed at that time and therefore it would be difficult for him to hold on to it.
Mashilelo said she agreed with how a male metro police officer from the scene filled out a subsequent police report on the accident. The report indicated that Motata did not evade arrest and that he had cooperated with police on the scene.
The defence’s cross-examination of Mashilelo and other witness testimony will continue on October 13. — Sapa