MAKHADO - While a shocked public is still awaiting further information regarding the circumstances surrounding the death in police detention of a 16-year-old boy at the Mara police station, a 17-year-old girl was brought to court from the holding cells, after being held for a whole weekend in the police cells.

Magistrate Marcel Roos instructed the immediate release of the 17-year-old girl, who appeared in court on Monday, September 19, without her parents or guardian. The girl was brought up from the cells beneath the court, after being arrested in town during the preceeding weekend on a charge of alleged shoplifting, and being summarily locked up by the police. There was no indication of any effort by the police to contact the parents or to involve a social worker. Magistrate Roos consequently refused to direct the court’s attention to a case brought before it in such an irregular manner.

On enquiry, a spokesperson at the Louis Trichardt Magistrate’s Court said it is highly irregular to arrest children and keep them locked up in police cells and to bring them to court without their parents or legal guardians. It is the duty of the police to make every effort to contact the parents. If such efforts prove to be fruitless, a social worker should be involved to protect the child’s basic and special rights and to arrange for legal representation, if necessary. It is not considered to be regular practice at all to lock up minor children in the police cells. Ignoring children’s rights is highly irregular. South Africa is a co-signatory of the UN’s Universal Declaration of Children’s Rights.

After the death of 16-year-old Elias Molaiwa in police detention at Mara on July 30, it was rumoured that the arresting officer, who had Elias arrested in close proximity to his parental home, without any effort to involve or inform the parents, deliberately separated him from other arrested youths and had him locked up with adult suspects, arrested for serious and violent crimes. Elias died some five hours later, after he was allegedly violently assaulted by inmates of the police cell. It was alleged that, in spite of the very loud shouting and other noise resulting from the vicious attack during the night in the police cells, there was no effort by the police on duty to intervene.

Further serious questions about the competence and attitude of police at the Mara station arose, when it came to light that one of the accused in the fatal attack on Elias was a 15-year-old Zimbabwean boy, arrested earlier on a charge of being in possession of suspected stolen goods. He was locked up among the adult inmates, and kept there, even after the court, during his first appearance on this lesser crime, had instructed the removal of the child to the juvenile detention section at Waterval. The court expressed surprise when the same child, from the same police cells, once again appeared before it, this time on a murder charge, involving the death of yet another youth, in the same cell to which he had been returned.