WARNING: This is Version 1 of my old archive, so Photos will NOT work and many links will NOT work. But you can find articles by searching on the Titles. There is a lot of information in this archive. Use the SEARCH BAR at the top right. Prior to December 2012; I was a pro-Christian type of Conservative. I was unaware of the mass of Jewish lies in history, especially the lies regarding WW2 and Hitler. So in here you will find pro-Jewish and pro-Israel material. I was definitely WRONG about the Boeremag and Janusz Walus. They were for real.
Original Post Date: 2009-05-19 Time: 11:00:02 Posted By: Jan
A Pretoria tow truck operator who was unlawfully arrested in front of his hysterical seven-year-old son and kept in custody for a few hours, apparently on a charge of car theft after he towed a man’s car from an accident scene, is set to receive R55 000 in damages from the police.
Jan Harm Wessels sought damages in the Pretoria High Court after what he claimed was a harrowing ordeal on December 28, 2004.
Wessels, who worked for Chandre’s Towing, towed away the car of Adolf Wasserfall after an accident. The owner of the car said this was done without his consent and he reported the matter to the police.
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Wessels later went to the Hercules police station, together with his son, to try to sort things out. The station commissioner, a Superintendent Phaladh, told him he was investigating a complaint of vehicle theft. Wessels, however, showed him a signed order from Wasserfall’s brother-in-law, giving permission for the vehicle to be towed.
Wessels said Phaladh told the owner of the car to proceed with the charge, as he (Phaladh) “intended locking up all Chandre’s people”.
Wessels said as he walked out of the charge office he was grabbed by the arm by Phaladh, who told him he was going to arrest him.
His son cried hysterically and was clinging to him, he said. Three other police officers helped arrest Wessels and he was put in a holding cell. The boy was taken to an office.
Wessels said while being locked up, he could hear his son crying uncontrollably in a nearby office. His wife later came to fetch the child and she testified how, when she passed him in the holding cell, her husband “desperately called to her to get him out”.
Wessels was later held at the Atteridgeville police station and later that night released, without being charged. He told the court he was shocked by his arrest and detention. He felt helpless and anxious, not only for himself, but for his son who witnessed the events.
He further complained that the holding cells were filthy and that his pre-existing depression was exacerbated by his arrest and detention.
Phaladh, however, testified that Wessels threatened him by banging his fists on the table in the charge office and shouting “I will f****** show you. You don’t know me.”
He said he arrested Wessels for intimidation and assault, not for car theft. Wessels pushed him and “generally behaved in an unacceptable manner”, he said.
Judge Ben du Plessis found the allegation that Phaladh harboured ill feelings towards the tow truck company was improbable. He also found that Wessels did indeed lean over the table and shout at Phaladh, before leaving the charge office. This prompted Phaladh to go after him and arrest him.
Regarding Wessels’s conduct, the judge said: “He showed no respect to Phaladh’s office. His conduct provoked the superintendent. To a large extent the plaintiff was the author of his own misfortune.”
He added that, on the other hand, Phaladh’s reaction to the plaintiff’s provocation was not expected of a senior police officer, as he “abused his powers of arrest to settle a private score, albeit that he did so on the spur of the moment”.
The judge did not award damages on behalf of the child, as he found Phaladh did not act with intent to injure the boy.