Disgruntled property owner, George:
I am a property owner in Groeneweide Park, George. On Saturday 28 August, I celebrated my 50th birthday at my house and had a small group of friends and family over to celebrate with me.
We were playing music and dancing and enjoying the celebrations until 22:00, when we moved the celebration into my garage and reduced the volume considerably, to where the music could not even be heard from the perimeter of my property. Up until 22:45 we had not received any complaints from any of our neighbours, no one had phoned to ask us to quieten down and no police official had been to our premises to complain about any noise or disturbance.
At around 23:15 five police vehicles and two civilian vehicles stopped outside my property, entered my premises through my front gate, which was secured by lock and chain, did not proceed to my front door, but went straight on to my garage door which they opened, all this without making any attempts to get consent from myself as owner.
When they approached me, it became clear that my neighbour, living directly behind me, had lodged a complaint of causing a noise disturbance. He has done this sort of thing to my neighbour next to me previously.
This was the first time that anyone, my neighbour or the police, had made any effort to bring to my attention that there was any noise disturbance of any kind. At one point there were more than seven police members on my property - all without having my consent or announcing their presence. One of the police officers then proceeded to confiscate my music speaker and no documentation regarding the particulars of the speaker were handed to me by the officers.
I am a law-abiding citizen who was celebrating his 50th birthday responsibly, but was embarrassed in front of my family and friends as well as my neighbours, and felt as if I was a drug lord being served a warrant to search my premises. All this because of a neighbour who has a personal vendetta against me and my youngest son, who has Down syndrome. My son was severely traumatised by the whole event and was in tears and apologised to me afterwards, as if he was the cause. This will affect him for weeks ahead. I personally feel if it was required, a police van could have been sent to my property and warned us to quieten down, which we would have happily done.
To send a whole army of police vehicles to my premises for a petty complaint is so uncalled for. I also feel that there are and were possibly far more serious crimes to attend to at the time, which possibly did not receive the required attention that they deserved as the whole shift of police were deployed to my house for a petty complaint, which could have been resolved in a far more professional manner. Read related article elsewhere in the newspaper.
Police response on 1 September:
We take cognisance of the concerns raised by the writer of the letter and as such, have notified the management of George SAPS in which jurisdiction the complainant resides. A proper investigation will be done to ascertain whether members acted within their mandate or not. Should it be found that members acted outside their scope of responsibility or mandate, disciplinary procedures will be instituted.
An officer will be assigned by the station commander to liaise with the complainant, soon.
Follow-up police response on 7 September:
The complainant was visited by an officer assigned by the Station Commander, Brigadier Michaels, to investigate the allegations made. However he indicated that he already pursued legal advice and intended to deal with the matter as such. We do respect his decision.
