The Supreme Court of Appeal has overturned a high court ruling that police should pay damages to a woman who was raped in Port Elizabeth nearly 10 years ago.
In her claim, she said the police had not done enough to find her that night. If they had, they would have found her, she said, and been able to stop the rape and probably to make arrests there and then. She said she never heard a siren or voices. She saw the helicopter but it did not spot her.
Judge Zondi said, however, that the evidence of the search team showed that the police had mobilised all available resources and these steps were “reasonable”. While there might have been omissions in the police investigation — including a failure to question bush dwellers in and around the beach “with any sense of urgency”, this did not prove “wrongfulness” which was an essential element in a liability claim, he said.
“To impose liability for harm in this case would make it difficult for police to conduct their investigations in future,” judge Zondi said. He said Ms K had also failed to prove that the actions of the police, and not the attack and rapes, had resulted in her trauma, as even her own experts had conceded.
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