Pretoria - It was third time lucky for a now former Ekurhuleni Metro Police Department officer who was earlier convicted of murder and sentenced to 15 years’ imprisonment after he shot and killed a teenage robber.
Rolston Pillay maintained all along that he had shot the alleged robber in self-defence, as the 17-year-old and his friends fired shots at him as they ran away.
According to his version he feared for his life and did not aim at anyone when he fired the shots in the direction of the fleeing robbers.
A single witness, however, testified that the robbers did not have a firearm and that they thus did not fire at Pillay.
The regional court in Benoni earlier convicted and sentenced Pillay to the maximum of 15 years after the magistrate said he could find no mitigating circumstances.
Pillay appealed against his conviction and sentence, but a full bench of the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria, ruled against him.
On appeal to the Supreme Court of Appeal, five judges were unanimous in their findings that Pillay should be believed. They overturned his convictions.
Pillay testified that on May 19, 2017, while he was a metro officer, he was engaged in patrol duties in the Benoni area. He attended an accident scene, where he was informed by members of the community that a robbery was taking place at the nearby Wordsworth School, Farrarmere.
He noticed two young men running from the direction of the school and gave chase. According to him, shots were fired at him by the alleged robbers.
He gave a detailed account of the chase in pursuit of the alleged robbers. He explained that they ran into a one-way street, where he pursued them while driving in the direction of oncoming traffic.
As he approached the robbers he shouted at them to stop, but they did not. Instead, one of them pulled out a revolver and fired a shot at him. In turn, he fired a shot in the direction of the robbers.
They ran towards a railway line and one of them fired a second shot in his direction. Pillay said he took cover underneath a metal barrier on the side of the road where he fired two more shots in their direction.
He said that at that point one of them fell to the ground and the other ran away.
He then called for back-up. When the paramedics arrived they declared the man on the ground dead.
A witness who was sitting nearby along the road testified that he saw “two boys” walking towards the school. After 30 minutes, he noticed the two boys running away, being cashed by the Metro officer, who was driving a police vehicle.
According to the witness he did not see the two alleged robbers in possession of a firearm. He denied that the deceased or the other alleged robber fired any shots at Pillay.
In ruling in favour of Pillay, the Supreme Court said in its view, on the probabilities the position of the cartridges indicated in photographs clearly supported Pillay’s version that he fired shots at various places, and not all at once in the same vicinity.
“It is highly improbable that the appellant fired the shots all at once in the same vicinity because the photographs indicate that cartridges were found at different places,” the court said.
The five justices also questioned the fact that nobody at the scene wanted to give statements, and that the witness’s statement was only taken down about two months after the incident.
It was also pointed out that this witness had changed his version of the events in many aspects and was thus not a reliable witness.
The Supreme Court concluded that the State had not proved its case beyond a reasonable doubt.
Pretoria News