Pretoria - Revenge is not always sweet as a Limpopo man discovered. He has to pay R200 000 in damages after he had his neighbour falsely arrested.
He had a vendetta against the neighbour, had him arrested for no reason and caused him to be locked up and maliciously prosecuted.
Johannes Claassens, a nature conservationist in Limpopo, will further receive another R400 000 in damages from the police after he was locked up in a cell for three days under harrowing circumstances.
Claassens, 67, was so traumatised after his ordeal that he broke down in tears on several occasions while testifying in court.
He earlier turned to the Limpopo High Court sitting in Polokwane, where he claimed damages against the SAPS and his neighbour, Frans Nakana.
The police and Nakana accepted full liability for subjecting Claassens to inhumane treatment for no reason. The only issue at the time was how much damages he should be awarded.
The court decided that R40 000 was a fair amount for unlawful arrest and incarceration, and rejected the claim for malicious prosecution against Nakana.
Claassens, however, appealed this outcome and Limpopo Judge President Ephraim Makgoba ruled that R400 000 payable by the SAPS was fair.
He said this was considering what Claassens had to endure and that Nakana, who had him falsely prosecuted for theft, should pay his neighbour R200 000.
Claassens has been practising as a professional conservationist for 45 years. At the time of the arrest he was 60. Sixteen police officers in three vehicles came to arrest him at his farm in 2015.
Nakana, a former police officer, was also present and was the one who laid a complaint with the police.
It emerged during the trial that Nakana had abused his connections to the SAPS to have Claassens arrested.
There had been bad blood between them for years, which included the fact that Claassens had reported Nakana to the authorities for allegedly illegally operating a poultry farm.
The arrest was made in the presence of the appellant’s wife, son, employees and bystanders.
During the arrest, Claassens was physically dragged out of his property and shoved into a police van. As his hands were cuffed behind his back, he struggled to get inside the vehicle and he seriously injured his elbow.
This was the start of his three days of hell. The officers drove at such a speed that Claassens fell around in the back of the police van.
At the police station he struggled to alight and shuffled on his buttocks to get out of the vehicle, much to the amusement of the police, the court was told.
After he was forced to sign some unknown document, he was thrown into a tiny cell which he had to share with 22 other inmates. They searched him for money and cigarettes and the terrified Claassens said he then began praying Psalm 23.
The SAPS did not dispute his evidence that the cell was stinking of human faeces, vomit and urine. He was shown a place to sit on the wet floor next to the shower. The floor was wet from shower water and urine.
Claassens did not receive any blankets but was given one by a cellmate. The blanket was dirty and stinking of human odour. He could feel lice crawling all over his body.
The cell was cold as it was in the middle of winter and the floor was cement and wet. The cell did not have a ceiling, the roof was open and the wind blowing in had the same effect as a freezer, he said. As there was no space for him to sleep, he had to sit upright.
Claassens told the court about the horror of the chanting of the inmates in the other cells and the screaming of persons being assaulted.
On the third morning he could not get up as he was frozen due to the cold. His body was stiff. He rolled over on his knees to get up and tried to hold on to the walls but could not get up. Two other inmates helped him by lifting him under his armpits.
He was told to go home, but he had to appear in court on trumped-up charges of theft and contravention of a protection order. Nothing came of the charges.
Judge Makgoba said the court was earlier wrong in only awarding Claassens R40 000 in damages given the hell he had to endure.
The judge also found that Nakana abused his power and connections as an ex-police officer and laid false charges which led to the arrest, which was accompanied by malice and revenge.
Pretoria News