Cops to serve for saving shoplifter

2003-07-10 22:17

Johannesburg - A former policeman and a former reservist were sentenced for corruption on Thursday to house arrest and community service after they helped a woman escape into a department store ceiling when she was caught shoplifting.

Former sergeant Brenton Klopper, 28, and former reserve constable Wolfgang Wiese, 26, were also ordered by Johannesburg Regional Court magistrate T Carsten to attend programmes on crime prevention.

The two were convicted and sentenced for an incident on September 9, 2000 when businesswoman Susan Ellis was caught shoplifting at a Stuttafords outlet in Sandton. Klopper and Wiese responded to the complaint and Ellis was handed to them by security staff.

Ellis, who had been arrested on eight occasions and convicted six times for shoplifting, testified that she was receiving treatment for kleptomania.

She told the court she asked if there was any way she could avoid arrest. She was asked if she had any money and replied that she had a few hundred rands.

Klopper and Wiese let her escape into the ceiling through an open trapdoor, after handing over R500. The woman said because she was short, the two men had to help her up to the trapdoor.

She crawled around for hours, but was unable to find a way out and was eventually rearrested.

Klopper and Wiese denied that Ellis had been handed over to them, but security staff testified otherwise.

According to pre-sentencing reports by a social worker, Klopper's former colleagues thought he was innocent and could not believe the father of three would throw away his career for R250.

- SAPA