Real story, real pain, real injustice.

This happened this week to my wife and i, i think it is worth sharing.

On thursday, we went to sort some official stuff out, including replacing my wife's license card, which had gone missing, we assume the baby got it, alhough we have looked everywhere without luck.

After being told that they had no record of her, she produced the origional temp license, outdated of course, but evidence that she had a license. At that point it was declared that the license was a fake, and the police were called, and she was arrested. It seems that the blank temp copy had origionally been stolen in Bisho. This was around 2 PM.

From there, they took her to Florida SAPS. Some paperwork was completed, and she was taken to the cells. At 4 my brother who is a lawyer arrived at the station, and attempted to get clarity on the situation, and apply for bail. From that point on, nothing happened. All that was lacking was for her to be charged with a crime, or released pending investigation. Only the arresting officer or a detective could charge her, the arresting officer had gone home, and Florida SAPS apparently has no resident detective. We called every single number on the walls, for the station commisioner to the detective on duty (none) and every other "help number" available. Every person we spoke with admitted that the situation seemed unreasonable, and that they would get back to us, no-one did, and after trying some numbers again, they just rang out.

A detective who was at the station was asked to assist, but declined due to "jurisdiction". Eventually at about 11 PM, a detective arrived to assess the situation, and after conferring with someone on the telephone, advised that she would not charge her, and that she would be held pending investigation in the morning.

When morning came, this detective went around collecting evidence, and by 2PM we were in front of a judge, who released her without needing bail. She has been charged with fraud, which i believe legally is the incorrect charge.

There are many questions about how this came about, very few that i can answer, all i can do is assess the facts:

1) At some point at Langlaagte testing station, illegalities occured.
2) My wife was unwittingly a victim of these crimes.
3) She was arrested and held without being charged overnight, without the option of gaining bail.
4) The police used the jackboot of justice on her, utterly merciless, and treated her as if she was guilty.

Now we are finding the best lawyers, my brother's law firm has already pledged to assist us, i believe this will eventually go away afetr a lot of money.

Whatever the outcome of the trial, we are suiing just about everyone involved, because of the way this has been handled. My wife is not a criminal, and in fact is a very soft person. The trauma inflicted by the police is inhuman. The first thing that was given her was coffee the next morning, despite having been in custody since 2 the previous day. The at various points denied her food, drink and blankets, and even denied her lawyer permission to see her. The captain (a woman) at the police station refused to speak to him, in front of all in the charge office. Vivienne could not even drink water, because there was blood on the cup. There was blood everywhere apparently, and she could see evidence on the walls of where people had their heads smashed against the walls, the bloodmarks were everywhere she looked. While we were at the station, they ignorwed her completely, but apparently after we left, they opened the door and checked on her every half hour. She thought they were bneing nice, but since she was alone i think they were keeping her from any sleep, not that she would have anyway.

The next person i was denied permission to see her, and did not until the court appearance.
I could rail on more, so much so bad, so many things that were done wrong. I really need to thank the TB people who assisted, calling and visiting while were were trying to get her out. We are both aso traumatised by this, but could not have got through without phenomenal support from family and friends.

By the way, my wife turned 30, yesterday in that blood stained cell. It was her birthday.