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Trouble in Paradise
| Date: |
26 March 2006 12:00 |
| Producer: |
Nicole Turner
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| Show: | Carte Blanche |
Knysna has been voted South Africa's favourite town three times running, but recent events there have opened a can of worms. The development boom on the Garden Route coast has changed the lagoon town from sleepy holiday haven to an exclusive playground for tourists and millionaires
But beneath the surface of all that natural beauty is a slippery underbelly of drugs and crime, a dangerous fire stoked by official apathy, ineptitude and corruption.
John Webb (Carte Blanche presenter): 'The Knysna police station doesn't have a very good reputation. It is widely believed to be corrupt and inefficient. In fact, one of its officers was arrested for drug dealing. He was suspended on full pay for two years, only to be reinstated and then promoted.'
Inspector Selwyn Bruiners is a real crack cop. He's been on the force for fifteen years, eight of those as a drug addict - starting with Mandrax and then going all out on crack cocaine.
Selwyn Bruiners (Inspector SAPS): 'I'm so deeply involved with drugs that, I don't feel like going to work because, if you started off the morning with that first hit, I am telling you your mind is not with the work or with anything else. It is concentrating on drugs.'
He spoke to us before entering rehabilitation for his crack addiction, after being arrested by his colleagues for the second time in six years; this time for theft.
Selwyn: 'I went around town borrowing money from somebody, not repaying the people. Now they have opened a case against me, basically for theft. I took basically all the money in my house for drugs. I actually forced my wife to go get money or go ask for money if there was no money in my house. Or I took things out of my house to sell it to get drugs.'
John: 'So how did you land up being a cop and an addict at the same time?'
Selwyn: 'I do feel guilty because I used drugs an hour before. And now I am getting dressed up to go to work, I don't feel like a cop any more.'
In 1999 Bruiners pleaded guilty to dealing in Mandrax after a sting operation caught him red- handed...
Selwyn: 'I bought the stuff - 15 Mandrax tablets - and as I was going down the N2 the anti-corruption unit stopped me, took the van's key and I was arrested in uniform.'
John: 'When you were promoted did you feel, 'well now I can get away with it'?'
Selwyn: 'Not really. I was shocked, to be honest with you. I was shocked. Getting promoted after being suspended for two years with a full salary and all of a sudden they read my rights to me. And I know the public as well, they were shocked because a lot of my friends asked me, 'How did you get that right?'
Director Gerhard Jantjies, deputy area commissioner for the southern Cape, was also surprised.
John: 'How is it possible that a convicted drug dealer can be promoted?'
Director G D Jantjies (SAPS Deputy Area Commissioner Southern Cape): 'I wasn't aware that the member was promoted, when he was convicted in terms of that case. But in terms of our policy... our policy it is not recommended that a member with a conviction should be promoted.'
John: 'So he was promoted against policy?'
Gerhard: 'I am not sure whether he was promoted.'
John: 'But director, I am telling you that it happened. It is a fact that he was promoted. Even he said that he was promoted.'
Gerhard: 'I don't have that information.'
John: 'But I am giving you that information, director, so you can take it as fact. How is it possible that he was promoted?'
Gerhard: 'I can't comment on that.'
John: 'How do you expect a community to have any confidence in a police service and report cases to the police when they know that the police service employs known drug dealers?'
Gerhard: 'In the police service we don't have a place for drug dealers. It is unacceptable. And those who are responsible for this must account.'
Selwyn: 'I am the problem child of the station, but they want to arrest me each time, instead of asking, 'Selwyn, how can we help you?'
John: 'So you were crying out for help but no one was listening?'
Selwyn: 'I didn't go to constables or inspectors to come and help. I went to staff offices in the police and asked them. I was crying out for help. Come and help.'
The police didn't just fail to help Bruiners, they have allowed the drug situation in the southern Cape to spiral out of control.
Selwyn: 'They haven't gone deep into the problem. And it's a problem here in Knysna; the drugs are coming in here like water.'
John: 'It's long been rumoured that the Knysna heads are a gateway for drugs into the southern Cape. It might just be speculation, but what is certain is that there is absolutely no control of traffic in and out of the lagoon.'
The main drug route is rather more mundane. Knysna is in the middle of the N2 Garden Route between Port Elizabeth and Cape Town. Large amounts of drugs pass through and are consumed here. Our undercover investigation reveals how outrageously easy it is to buy hard drugs 24 hours a day...in broad daylight... and in the dead of night.
John: 'This taxi rank in the middle of Knysna is a virtual open air drug market. Drug dealers brazenly sell their wares alongside leather bags, sweets and vegetables.'
Gerhard: 'Currently we have a strategy in Knysna. Most of the drug dealers who have been [evicted] [convicted?] of crimes addressed by our crime intelligence operation, by information we have received from the community. And based on that information, then we launch operations against the drugs in Knysna.'
John: 'But clearly, that strategy is not working, because Knysna is a town in crisis.'
Gerhard: 'What we have done now, since January, is that we are busy with an intervention in Knysna. We will send new resources to Knysna and also members to assist the local police in dealing with the drugs.'
Drug related crimes have increased dramatically in the southern Cape, doubling from 2003 to 2004. The regional organised crime unit has made some seizures on the main roads, but the Knysna police station has hardly made a dent.
Selwyn: 'Working a twelve hour shift or an eight hour shift and you just arrest two guys with two stops and the whole of Knysna is full of drugs. It's pathetic.'
Gerhard: 'Most of the drug dealers or the drug lords make use of a runner system where they use young children to sell their drugs. So sometimes it is very difficult to get to the drug dealers themselves.'
Selwyn: 'Everybody in the police knows who they are, but they do nothing. They try to bust the guys who go buy the stuff from the dealers but not the dealers themselves.'
'Tupac' (Drug Dealer): 'If it's any dugs you know in your head if you tell me, I give it to you one time.'
This dealer called Tupac operates three runners in the George taxi rank where our hidden cameras recorded this Mandrax deal. Tupac said he feared for his life after being chased out of Knysna by rival dealers and corrupt cops.
Tupac: 'If I touch Knysna I die. They're going to shoot me. Because they sent a lot of people... look the knife you see the mark of a knife. You can see. You can see this... all of the knife, around. You see all of the knife. Gangsters come. They sent a gangster to come to do for me that shit.'
Tupac says he used to be a big supplier in Knysna, supplying Ellie Gelant, a Hornlee based drug lord who runs two merchants or drug outlets like this one, where our hidden cameras captured scenes of how some Hornlee teenagers spend their free time... smoking crack, Mandrax and dagga. His Hamilton Street House is host to notorious parties where drugs flow freely.
Tupac: 'He controls everything there, everything there.'
Journalist: 'And how come the police never catch him?'
Tupac: '[The police] never catch him, so just ask yourself.'
Marshall Laminie (CEO, Knysna Alcohol & Drug Centre): 'They have got guns and they are well connected, so automatically people are scared.'
Marshall Laminie is CEO of the Knysna Drug and Alcohol Centre.
Marshall: 'Young people are using crack, that's a thriving thing in coloured areas. The kids think it is the best thing since Christmas!'
We spoke to this 16-year-old from Hornlee, we'll call Daniel. He's clean now, but used to be a regular at the Hornlee drug merchants.
'Daniel': 'Drugs make you hyperactive and what-not and you're 'dangerous' on the dance floor.'
Selwyn: 'Hornlee... it is pathetic. Children are using rocks and it is expensive; you are paying R50 for a small piece.'
Selwyn: 'Nobody ever gave me money. I am a cop and still I can't get drugs for free from the dealers. They don't want to give me a small piece. I am a cop, so that just shows you there must be something higher up, there must be something wrong.'
Daniel: 'I think they are smuggling with the cops. The cops know them, but they never catch them'
Tupac: 'If you want to be a dealer you must work with the cops. If you want to make more money you must work with them. Maybe they give you information if anything's going to happen. Maybe they will come to you and tell you, 'No, be careful...'
Selwyn: 'I have got proof that some of the cops are getting paid to keep quiet and some of them are giving the guys tip offs before there are any raids in this area.'
Our investigation quickly revealed that Selwyn Bruiners is small fry in terms of police corruption. We knew who was moving the drugs and who was selling them. There were constant and repeated allegations concerning a handful of cops alleged to protect dealers or deal in drugs themselves.
Tupac: 'He's corrupt. He's a bullshit policeman...'
Gerhard: 'Not all our members are corrupt. I would indicate that maybe one percent of our members are corrupt, but not all our members.'
Knysna's Mayor until recently, Dr Joy Cole, also questions whether Knysna is worse than elsewhere...
Dr Jay Cole (ex-Mayor Knysna): 'It is fine for people to say we have a problem, but on what do they base it? And that is my problem. I really want to see facts and figures and nobody has been coming forth with that sort of thing.'
It's such a crisis in Knysna that a campaign was recently launched to deal with it, led by missionary Theo du Plessis
John: 'Theo, how big is the drugs problem in Knysna?'
Theo du Plessis (Anti-Drug Campaigner): 'It's huge, John. People seem to be able to operate with full impunity. Deals are going down in front of our noses. John, we are dealing with kids 13 years and younger. The average age of the heroin user is 13. It is a sorry state of affairs. It is as easy as going to one of these fruit sellers behind me, buying your vegetables and your drugs. The drugs get handed over, not hidden, in full view of any passer by. That is our situation here.'
John: 'So the police move into the market behind you and make a few arrests and the following day the guys are back on the streets again selling.'
Theo: 'Very much so. We are trying to help somebody at this stage. She is a heroin addict and she told us that her dealer was bust. His name is Cliffy Daniels, and the next day he was offering her heroin again.'
Cliffy Daniels is one of several dealers in the rank. He lives in the Judah Square Rastafarian community. Here marijuana is condoned, but hard drugs are taboo. Community chairman Maxi Melville says Daniels has been reported to the police on numerous occasions.
Maxi Melville (Judah Square Chairman): 'Everyone talks about crime, but who are the criminals? And in this incidence we know that there is some undercover cops or police doing their own undercover thing... all about money.'
Cliffy's wife told us that when he is bust he simply pays a bribe.
Cliffy's wife: 'They caught him with a little bit of dagga. He had to pay R300.'
Tupac also told us of occasions when he was arrested with large amounts of drugs which never materialised in court, allowing him to get off lightly. He says crooked cops sell the drugs back to the dealers.
Tupac: 'And maybe if they catch somebody who's got stuff, they bring it back to you.'
Journalist: 'You buy it back from them?'
Tupac: 'You buy it from them. Even if you don't have money, they give it to you and then you sell it and after that you give him money back. If you didn't give money back you are going to have trouble.'
It's not just drugs that leave the Knysna police with egg on their faces. Last year the town was rocked by a series of murders - two of them young white women who were last seen clubbing on Knysna's main street.
On the morning of 10 October the body of 19-year-old Jessica Wheeler was found partially clothed in the churchyard in the middle of town
John: 'The pathologist report was leaked to the local press and so Jessica's parents and friends discovered the gruesome details about her death in the local papers. She had been sodomised and died of suffocation - her nose and throat filled with churchyard soil.'
Then a month later 20-year-old Victoria Stadler disappeared. Like Jessica, she had spent the night at local bars Stones and Zanzibar. Zanzibar would not allow us to film, but Stones' management said there was nothing to hide.
This is Stones' CCTV footage from the fateful night of 10 November when Victoria arrived at the club alone just after eight. She spent the night playing pool, dancing and drinking with Stones DJ Heinrich Van Rooyen, whom she had met two weeks earlier. Just after one the two left together. After more drinks across the road at Zanzibar, Heinrich says she gave him a lift home to Hornlee. She was never seen alive again.
Victoria's father Karl Stadler spoke to us in Johannesburg where he works as a video editor.
Derek Watts (Carte Blanche presenter): 'Just describe her to us'
Karl Stadler (Father): 'She was my daughter... she was alive and she was happy and she enjoyed life.'
Derek: 'Basically you have been disappointed by the police investigation?'
Karl: 'If they had investigated the Jessica Wheeler case properly and maybe a proper detective was appointed to do this job in the first place then I wouldn't be talking to you today.'
Five days after her night out, Victoria's badly decomposed body was found in dense bush, 100 metres from her burned out car on a dirt road near Hornlee.
Karl: 'You know something really bad has happened. You can feel it. I mean you found your child five days later, her body in some or other forest.'
Two days later Heinrich Van Rooyen, the 23-year-old DJ who had last seen her alive, was arrested for murder, as well as Jessica Wheeler's. His father Isaac Van Rooyen is the retired head of the Knysna prison where his son awaits trial for double murder at the end of March.
Isaac van Rooyen (father): 'I'm not saying that my son is an angel, but I know that he is innocent. I am truly unhappy with the manner in which the investigation was handled by the Knysna detectives.'
John: 'This is where Jessica Wheeler's body was found. It is right next to the apartment where she lived and within shouting distance of the Knysna police station. This crime scene held vital clues for the police - like three sets of footprints that weren't lifted at all.'
Although forestry officials had told police about a car on fire near Hornlee, and Victoria had been reported missing, it took the Knysna police five days to make the connection and find the body.
Karl: 'The police didn't do anything. My question is... they get the report; why didn't anyone get in their car and see what it is about? But it never happened.'
John: 'How do you react to allegations that the investigation into Victoria Stadler's death in particular was bungled?'
Gerhard: 'I am not sure about that allegation. But court proceedings will reveal whether the police bungled up the investigation or not. But if indeed it did reveal that the police did bungle the investigation, then we will start an investigation.'
John: 'But, hypothetically, if in a murder investigation the area wasn't cordoned off; if it took five days to find the body after a vehicle had been found; if sniffer dogs were only called in later; how would you react to a case being investigated like that? Would you be happy?'
Gerhard: 'No, I wouldn't be happy.'
John: 'At Heinrich van Rooyen's bail hearing the State introduced dramatic DNA evidence linking him to both victims. His semen was found on the body of Jessica and on Victoria's clothing. But his family and supporters continue to insist that there is more to this story than meets the eye.'
There is speculation that others might have been involved. Private investigator Christian Botha was hired to investigate the murders. He found evidence, he says, the police overlooked and is now assisting the defence team.
An eyewitness saw two men with Jessica in the churchyard the night she died. One of them was a cop.
Chris Botha (Private Investigator): 'My main witness has been intimated. He has been picked up by one of the suspects, who is a police officer, and was taken to the police station where he was assaulted. If the police had such a strong case against Heinrich van Rooyen, why would they be intimidating a witness who is suggesting that other suspects are involved other than Heinrich?'
Theo: 'If you go onto the web and you click on 'Knysna', you read about murders and date rapes and drugs, not about loeries, elephants, lagoons and forests. We would love to see that change.'
John: 'Selwyn, if the situation doesn't change here in Knysna, how bad do you think the problem can get?'
Selwyn: 'Crime will increase here day by day, I am telling you. You will get murders going on here in this town, theft, house breakings and theft. Day by day cars are being broken into, houses are being broken into... it is pathetic.'
Gerhard: 'There are a lot of questions still unanswered about Bruiners and we will come forward with a strategy to address with this issue because there is total mistrust now from the community toward the police.'
Knowing what we do about the Knysna police, we decided to confront taxi rank dealer Cliffy Daniels with our cameras.
John: 'We believe you are selling drugs here, Cliffy. We caught you on camera.'
Cliffy: 'No, I don't sell anything.'
John: 'We got you selling crack cocaine.'
Cliffy: 'Oh, am I the only one in South Africa who makes these things and brings these things... who brings these things here? Go talk to other people who are selling drugs. Don't put me on this thing.' [he covers the camera]
Cliffy Daniels is still dealing drugs in the Knysna taxi rank.
As for Selwyn Bruiners, his future is uncertain. He has been suspended from the South African police service without salary or benefits.
IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER:While every attempt has been made to ensure this transcript or summary is accurate, Carte Blanche or its agents cannot be held liable for any claims arising out of inaccuracies caused by human error or electronic fault. This transcript was typed from a transcription recording unit and not from an original script, so due to the possibility of mishearing and the difficulty, in some cases, of identifying individual speakers, errors cannot be ruled out.
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