NELSPRUIT- A 32-year-old woman is expected to appear before the Barberton Magistrate’s Court today after she was arrested on Saturday 07 December 2019, in Lowscreek for falsely opening a case with police.
According to police information, the woman reported a case of robbery at Lowscreek SAPS and the case was duly opened as well as registered at the station.
The woman alleged at the time of reporting that she is employed as an administration clerk at Sabie Sipsop, Komati land. She added that she was robbed of her company’s laptop as well as cash.
As with other cases, police immediately begun with their investigation and used all available resources at their disposal to crack the case. Robbery is regarded to be one of the serious contact crimes due to the violent nature in which it occurs.
Preliminary investigation revealed that the allegations of robbery by the woman were fabricated and it is further believed that she provided false names to police.
A report has surfaced further that the woman earlier impersonated herself as a key witness who is placed under witness protection services and also claimed to be a legal expert in a high profile case so that she could enjoy accommodation benefits at a Home Based Care establishment. It has also come to light that the woman has absconded a court appearance on another case of being in possession of house breaking implements.
The police then traced, arrested and charged the woman with perjury hence her appearance today, Monday 09 December 2019.
Police cannot rule out the possibility of adding more charges to the woman. Meanwhile, the Provincial Commissioner of Mpumalanga, Lieutenant General Mondli Zuma, has since condemned the false reporting of the robbery case by the woman.
“Every case reported to police is taken very seriously and necessary resources are channelled to resolve such a case, especially a case such as this one that has been reported by a woman. The resources could have been taken somewhere else to help those who really needed them most. We need to set an example with this one and we hope that a lesson will be learned from this.” said General Zuma.