Noreen Bam, a former sergeant who was fired for shoplifting, lost her legal bid to get her job back. She also used a false name when she was caught. A now former police officer who stole items at Checkers lost her bid to get her job back.
ZELDA VENTER
A police officer who was fired after she was caught shoplifting with her mother and then gave a false name to the security officer, turned to the Cape Town Labour Court in a bid to get her job back, as she claimed she was on medication at the time.
Noleen Bam asked the court to review and set aside the arbitration award in which the arbitrator upheld the substantive fairness of her dismissal. She was employed as a sergeant at the time of the incident.
Bam was fired after it was found that she had contravened the SAPS regulations by removing items from the shelves at Checkers. It was further found that she was dishonest by giving a false name and address when arrested.
A sergeant from Parow police station, who had arrested the applicant and her mother and returned the stolen goods found in their possession to the store, testified that Bam gave a false name. She also asked if her mother could not take the blame for the incident.
A security officer at the store testified that she saw Bam and her mother loading items from a store trolley into a black and white bag and a baby bag. At the till, they only paid for certain items and did not pay for anything in the bags.
The alarm went off when they left the store, and the security guard found unpaid items in the bags. Bam gave her name as Suzette Karelse, the name of a South African singer.
Bam begged the security officer to let them go and offered to draw R1,000 to pay for the stolen items.
The alarm had been activated by unscanned tags on meat packets. The guard remembered that Bam and her mother had a navy bag (a non-branded shopping bag) and a black and white bag. They had one Checkers bag as well when they were leaving the store.
Bam testified she and her mother had gone shopping on the day. While she had been busy changing her baby’s nappy in the car, an unknown man sold her mother something. She was unaware of this transaction at the time and was drowsy from medication she was taking.
She claimed that when they entered Checkers, the alarm went off, but the security officer did not look in the two bags they were carrying.
The alarm went off when they exited the store after purchasing groceries, but Bam explained that the meat found in the bags was that which her mother had bought from the stranger and definitely not what they stole from Checkers, as claimed.
Bam also denied she had identified herself as “Suzette Karelse.” She said her mother called her that, as it was her nickname as a child on account of her singing.
The security officer, meanwhile, testified that the goods found in the two bags amounted to more than R1,000, including the meat items.
Bam’s mother testified that she had bought meat items from a stranger for R50 while her daughter was busy with her baby. She felt sorry for the man who begged her to buy the goods, and she did not have a proper look at them. He emptied the goods into her black and white handbag before they went shopping, she said.
The arbitrator concluded that the employer’s version was more probable and that Bam had fabricated her version of the theft and why the name “Suzette Karelse” came to be used.
Upon turning to the labour court, Bam for the first time mentioned medication which she claimed she used that day which had affected her.
In turning down her application, the labour court found that the arbitrator had weighed up the evidence and was correct in dismissing the versions of Bam and her mother. The labour court also did not entertain her version about the medication, as this was the first time she had mentioned it.
zelda.venter@inl.co.za