Worcester police officials jailed for soliciting bribe
Two Worcester police officials were effectively jailed for 10 months on Monday, for corruptly demanding R8000 for the release of a confiscated truck back to the driver.
Elizabeth Messias and Riaan Hunt, both 34, appeared in the Specialised Commercial Crime Court in Bellville, before magistrate Sabrina Sonnenberg.
Messias, a constable previously based at Worcester, was suspended without salary after her arrest, but has since been reinstated and is now based at Rawsonville.
Hunt, previously a reservist, and Messias' partner-on-the-beat at Worcester, resigned his job as a result of the case.
They were both sentenced to five years correctional supervision, involving a 10-month period of imprisonment, to then be released into house arrest.
Both were locked in the court's holding cells for about an hour after sentence was passed, before defence attorney Sakkie Kroukam lodged an application for leave to appeal.
The application is to be heard on May 12, and both were released on R10 000 bail pending the outcome.
While Messias was being held, a woman family member hurled abuse at the investigating officer, a captain, as he waited in the public gallery.
The woman left the court room at the request of a police official, but soon afterwards a young girl, around the age of four or five, entered the court room and swore at the captain.
The captain tolerated the abuse without any reaction.
According to the charge sheet, the two accused intercepted a truck outside Worcester in August 2011, in search of counterfeit goods.
They found none, but Messias found a carton containing the drug KAT on the driver's seat.
They confiscated the vehicle, but released it and the carton back to the driver for the R8 000 bribe.
According to the charge sheet, Messias and Hunt were reported when they stopped the same truck three months later, and demanded money again.
The magistrate said both Messias and Hunt had denied the corruption charge, and protested their innocence to the very end.
The defence said a sentence of correctional supervision, involving house arrest without imprisonment, would adequately meet the interests of society.
However, prosecutor Xolile Jonas said mere house arrest, without a short period in prison, would be too lenient, and leave the community with the wrong impression.