A woman and her teenage son were brutally battered – allegedly by a police officer – after the family started taking videos of their eviction from a property in Kwazakhele, Port Elizabeth.
Lulama Moni, 59, and her son, Simvuyele Moni, 14, were slapped, kicked and even choked, allegedly by the officer who accompanied the Sheriff of the Court who served the family with an eviction order on December 5.
“I am scared he’ll come back and kill us,” Moni said.
“That man kept on pushing and kicking me.
“I really thought I was going to die. This was only for questioning the eviction and for my sons taking pictures and videos,” she said.
Moni is demanding justice and she says she often sees the police officer – whose name has not been established – driving around the Missionvale area, to where she has moved after the eviction.
The eviction and the start of what would eventually turn into the alleged brutal assault can be viewed in a series of videos seen by The Herald.
The videos were taken by Simvuyele and Moni’s two other sons, Bongile Moni, 25, and Bonga, 27.
Moni said she blamed herself for losing her children’s home – her only asset to leave behind in her will.
“Now that police officer will be the cause of my death.
“All I want is justice for my family,” she said.
Moni has been locked in a bitter dispute over the ownership of the house for the past eight years.
She and her now deceased husband, Gibson, offered to buy the house in Nconco Street for R95,000 in 2010.
The asking price was increased in 2011 by the owner, Mphuthumi Sojali, to R140,000 – and the sale of the property never actually took place.
The family have since moved to Moni’s daughter’s house in an informal settlement near Missionvale.
They now share a one-bedroom shack, with Moni’s damaged furniture piled up to the roof.
Moni opened a case against the officer on December 7.
Police spokesperson Captain Andre Beetge confirmed that a case of assault was opened at the New Brighton police station.
“The assault case was opened and the docket has been transferred to the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (Ipid) for further investigations,” Beetge said.
Ipid spokesperson Moses Dlamini could not be reached for comment.
Simvuyele said he was with his two brothers when the Sheriff of the Court and police officers arrived at the house.
“My mother had gone to see a lawyer when they came and started chucking our belongings outside,” he said.
Simvuyele said he started recording the eviction on his phone but a police officer knocked the device out of his hand.
“When I tried picking up my phone the police officer started slapping me.
“My mother was not at home and I took the videos because I thought it was against the law what they were doing,” Simvuyele said.
“When my mother came back she asked what happened and no-one answered her.
“When she tried to stop the police from throwing away our belongings, one of them started slapping and kicking her.”
He said the police officer only stopped assaulting his mother after she passed out.
Simvuyele took the video just before his mother was brutally beaten.
In the video, people are heard screaming at each other, with a female police officer asking Simvuyele why he was taking a video.
The video then goes out of focus but people carry on shouting and swearing at each other.
Bongile can be heard asking the police why they assaulted a child.
When Bongile tried to intervene in his mother’s alleged assault, he said he was shoved into a police van.
Bonga said it was a painful experience to watch his mother and younger brother being beaten for taking videos.
“We were helpless. There were so many police officers.
“Eventually, the officer who assaulted our mother left but we see him almost every day.
“He is walking around freely.”
Sojali said he obtained a court order for the eviction of the family after Moni failed to settle the sale of the house and stopped paying municipal rates in 2016.
When asked about the alleged assault, Sojali said he never sent for the police.
“I had nothing to do with the assault. My concern was the eviction because that is my house.”
A relative, Michael Mava, 56, said he was called by Bonga shortly after the alleged assault.
“When I arrived at the house their belongings were outside. Bongile [was] in the back of police van and when I asked why, the police said he was taking videos.”
Lawyer Kuban Chetty said it was permitted to take videos or photos of the police as long as it did not impede them from carrying out their duties.
“These people were affected by the actions of the police, whereby they captured what occurred, without impeding upon the duties of the police officers.
“The question whether the police officers acted lawfully is another matter, and the affected people were recording to report an offence, which makes their actions even more plausible,” he said.