Court employee in court for failure to obey police order
Lebogang Baingapi | Friday June 12, 2015 15:56
The court heard that on June 4, 2013, the assistant court bailiff was ordered to stop at a roadblock where she was to be charged for failing to wear a seat belt but she drove on.
One state witness, Sergeant Kaisara told court that on that day, he stopped the accused person along a road between Botswana Agricultural Marketing Board (BAMB) and Mongala mall in Kanye, where he asked her to pull over. He said the accused pretended to stop, before she then sped away at high speed.
The witness revealed to court that he followed the accused to a certain yard in Goo-Ruele ward, where he asked the accused to produce her driver’s licence. “She told me to go back to the roadblock and she would bring the licence to me at her own time,” he said.
Sergeant Kaisara said he then called other police officers to help him arrest the accused person. He added that the accused person was not cooperative and was put into a police vehicle by force. The court heard that after her arrest, it was revealed that the accused did not even have a drivers’ licence, but she refused to sign for the charges.
In her defence, the accused told court that after Sergeant Kaisara stopped her, he did not attend to her but kept busy with other drivers. Khudu confirmed that she was told by one constable Oteng Nketisang, that maybe Kaisara did not stop her as she assumed.
Khudu further stated that when she arrived home, Kaisara, who demanded her driver’s licence, later confronted her but she confessed that she only had a learner’s licence.
Khudu narrated that she was slapped with an unexplained charge of P1, 600, which she was sceptical about signing.
She however told court that she could bring any witness to testify that she stopped when asked to do so by the police. The accused represents herself and will appear in court again on June 12, 2015, to allow the prosecution to complete their final submissions. Judgment has been reserved for June 23, 2015.