The Democratic Alliance (DA) in Gauteng says it is concerned about the state of holding cells at Lyttleton Police Station in Tshwane.
The party alleges that suspects were kept at the back of a truck for hours at the police station on Monday.
According to the Shadow MEC for Community Safety Crezane Bosch, more than 50 suspects were kept in the police truck.
“This is unacceptable and violates the rights of the suspects as they were kept in a truck without food, water, sufficient ventilation, and access to ablution facilities,” said Bosch.
Bosch said the suspects were supposed to have appeared in court this morning but were turned away due to an alleged outage at the court due to a sub-station that was flooded by heavy rains.
“The police officers on duty were struggling to find available cells at the nearby police stations to hold the suspects until their next scheduled appearance tomorrow, as other stations had no available capacity at their cells.”
She said the police station has been without holding cells for the past seven years now and has been using Sunnyside SAPS’ cells to keep suspects which is approximately 20 km away.
“This is costing the station more money in terms of fuel costs in transporting the suspects and hampers police service delivery as they must escort the suspects instead of conducting visible policing. In addition, there is an increased risk of suspects escaping from lawful custody while being transported to Sunnyside SAPS.”
