KZN High Court (Durban) Judge Themba Sishi has ordered the state to pay up after Thabani Biyela was arrested and held for months on a rape charge of which he was ultimately found not guilty, says a report in The Mercury. Sishi said the arresting officer had ‘failed miserably’ to analyse the complainant’s statement given to him before Biyela’s arrest. ‘He did not have good grounds for suspecting the plaintiff,’ the judge said. Biyela was arrested at his Cato Crest home in February 2012. He spent just under eight months behind bars, during which time he was tried and found not guilty. According to his evidence, the warrant officer who arrested Biyela was acting on information from the mother of a young rape victim that Biyela was the rapist. She led police to his house and she and her daughter pointed him out, the warrant officer said. The defendants were ordered to pay Biyela damages, the amount of which was yet to be determined.

Full report in The Mercury (subscription needed)

An innocent Gauteng woman who used her ID document to obtain credit was arrested for fraud before it was discovered the Department of Home Affairs had issued an ID document to a woman with the same name and ID number in KZN, Beeld reports. Thandeka Duma, from Gauteng, successfully sued the police for her unlawful arrest and detention. Judge Annalie Basson, of the Gauteng High Court (Pretoria), said the 'bizarre' case caused Duma to be detained for several days without any probable cause of a crime. She had a revolving credit account with a Game store in Johannesburg. The shop's manager testified that he received a letter from credit provider RCS to arrest Thandeka Duma for fraud after the KZN Duma complained about fraud on an account she wasn't aware of. The police did not take steps to verify the veracity of Thandeka Duma's ID document and arrested her. Basson ordered the police to pay her R300 000 compensation.

Full Beeld report

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