Yengeni admitted driving drunk

2008-11-21 14:05

Cape Town - A second policeman has told the Goodwood Magistrate's Court that Tony Yengeni admitted he had been drinking on the night he was arrested for drunken driving, and that he apologised.

Constable Jeremy Voskuil told the court that he and a colleague, Constable Charles Jaftha, were frisking two suspects on the night on November 25 last year in Voortekker Road, Goodwood, when he heard a noise "like dragging a spade along a road".

He looked round and saw a black BMW driving across the centre island.

"The vehicle did not stick in the lane it was supposed to be travelling in. It swerved and drove across the middle island," he said. Fifty metres further on it did the same thing again.

"The vehicle repeated the same action of going over the middle island - of driving up onto or across the island, your worship. And as in the first instance it came back again [into the correct lane] immediately."

Voskuil said he and Jaftha chased after the BMW and pulled it over some distance further on.

Yengeni got out of the driver's seat, and appeared unsteady on his feet. "Constable Jaftha then asked the accused if he had anything to drink, to which the answer was yes," Voskuil said.

Yengeni apologised

Jaftha told Yengeni he was being arrested for drunken driving, and explained his constitutional rights to him.

"The accused apologised to Constable Jatha. He, in the Xhosa language, said he was sorry."

Voskuil said he got in the driver's seat of the BMW to drive it back to the police station, but could not start it.

Yengeni, now in the passenger's seat, explained to him how to do it. Voskuil said that if he was put back in the car now, he would not be able to remember how to do it.

"Something about you turn the key and tramp on the brakes and petrol simultaneously," he said.

- SAPA