Tshepiso Seetseng spent 14 months behind bars before charges against him were withdrawn. He demanded R8m from the state for his ordeal.  The SCA has ruled that he receive R60 000 – covering only two days he spent in jail for which the Police Minister was found liable.

The ruling comes 13 years after police officers arrived at Seetseng’s home in Mmabatho, on 7 December 2013 and detained him. He was placed in a holding cell.

News24 reports that he was arrested without a warrant on charges of rape, robbery and housebreaking, cycled between police holding cells, a correctional facility and a Regional Court dock before being released.

In August 2014 – eight months after his arrest – prosecutor Tshepo Kalakgosi received a report from the Forensic Science Laboratory which excluded Seetseng as the donor of the forensic sample taken from the rape survivor during her medical examination.

Nevertheless, the case was not withdrawn. The DNA report was also not disclosed to Seetseng or his legal team.

On 9 February 2015, more than five months after the DNA report reached the prosecutor’s office, Seetseng, through his legal counsel, refused to proceed with the court appearance until the DNA results were disclosed.

That report was subsequently made available, and three days later, on 12 February 2015, the prosecution withdrew all charges against Seetseng. He had spent 431 days in custody.

He sued the Minister of Police for unlawful arrest and detention, and the NDPP for malicious prosecution. 

The first round of what would eventually be a protracted, decade-long legal battle went against him when, in December 2017, Judge Tebogo Djaje of the North West High Court (Mahikeng) dismissed both claims.

He appealed, and in July 2019, the Full Court overturned the unlawful arrest finding but upheld the dismissal of the malicious prosecution claim. That 2019 judgment said no reasonable police officer would have arrested a suspect without a warrant when the suspect’s identity was so vague, ruling his arrest unlawful.

Acting Deputy Judge President Andre Petersen, tasked in 2023 with determining a quantum for damages, was bound by the Full Court’s findings. News24 reports that he found that the unlawful conduct attributable to the Minister of Police covered only 7 to 9 December 2013.

This as Seetseng’s own pleadings had expressly assigned the subsequent 429 days of detention to the NDPP, and since the malicious prosecution claim against the NDPP had been dismissed, that period went uncompensated.

By the time the SCA closed this chapter of his case this week, he had received R60 000 – roughly R139 per day for each day of unlawful imprisonment.

Judge Leonie Windell found Seetseng was contending that the unlawfulness of his arrest and detention made the Police Minister liable for the entire period he spent behind bars.

However, the ‘unlawfulness of an arrest does not, without more, render the arresting authority liable for the entire period of subsequent detention’.

Following their SCA defeat, Seetseng’s attorneys told News24 they are considering approaching the Constitutional Court.

Full News24 report