Cops helped thief escape
2003-03-17 14:47
Johannesburg - Two former policemen who helped a kleptomaniac woman escape into the ceiling of Stuttafords in Sandton have been convicted of corruption and will be sentenced on May 8.
Brenton Klopper, 28, and Wolfgang Wiese, 26, appeared in the Johannesburg Regional Court on Monday for sentencing, but the case was postponed because the probation officer's report was not ready.
The court previously heard evidence from a slightly-built, "very embarrassed" businesswoman that she had been arrested eight times in all for theft of items she did not really need and could easily have paid for, and had been convicted five times for shoplifting.
She was receiving treatment for being a kleptomaniac.
The elegantly-dressed woman said she was shopping at Stuttafords in Sandton City on September 9, 2000. She had never been caught shoplifting there and was suddenly completely overcome.
She picked up some items, left without paying and was caught by the security staff.
After being kept waiting for hours, she said, she was handed over to Klopper and Wiese, who were policemen at the time.
She took a chance and asked them if there was any way she could "avoid" the situation.
She was asked if she had any money on her and replied that she had a few hundred rands.
Lost
Klopper and Wiese let her escape into the ceiling through an open trapdoor. Owing to her diminutive size she could not reach the trapdoor by herself, she said. The men helped her in.
The policemen flatly denied during their evidence in court that the smartly-dressed, kleptomaniac businesswoman was ever handed over to them to be taken to the charge office, but the court heard corroborating evidence from a security officer stationed in the building that she was.
The woman said she crawled around above the ceiling of the upmarket shopping complex for two hours, dressed in her best clothes. No one was alerted by the strange noises from above because the shops had closed and almost everyone had gone home.
It had been assumed that she would be able to emerge through a vent near the car park and get away, but she became completely lost, she said.
Eventually she was re-arrested and charged with escaping. She then spilled the beans about Klopper and Wiese.
The defence argued that all the two accused had to do if they wanted to let the arrested woman get away was tear up the documentation and drop the woman somewhere by the roadside. The case would then have disappeared.
Klopper and Wiese said the charge against them was a desperate attempt by the kleptomaniac woman to keep out of further trouble.
After hearing corroborating evidence and considering the totality of evidence, the court found Klopper and Wiese guilty.
They will appear for mitigating evidence and sentencing on May 8.
- SAPA