A cop who is being investigated for police brutality het die meisie hospitaal toe geskop.
The 19-year-old from Athlone has been told by doctors that she will never fully recover after being assaulted, allegedly by Sergeant Giovanni Gabriels from the Athlone Police Station, in December 2017.
She has since laid a criminal charge against the officer, and the matter will come before court later this month.
Nikita Peters was just 17 when she was repeatedly kicked in the stomach and back by a policeman.
She was being arrested for filming four police officers assaulting her cousin.
She says: “I was coming from home when I saw the police were beating up my cousin. He did not have any money or drugs on him. I took my phone out and started recording and another officer told Gabriels to stop me and he came towards me and I ran.
“He tripped me and I fell flat on my tummy and face. As I turned on my side, he kicked me hard in the tummy and back.
“The pain was unbearable. He dragged me to the van and I was taken to the cells. I started bleeding heavily from my vagina and a male officer pulled my panties down in the cell to check. I was so embarrassed and afraid,” Nikita says.
Nikita was taken to hospital and it was discovered that she was bleeding internally.
They opened a case of assault and the matter will be back in the Athlone Magistrate's Court on 25 April.
Nikita’s mother, Geraldine, 50, says her daughter is still in agony.
“The doctors are still running tests. For now the muscle of her abdomen and back are gone,” she says.
“She cannot do much and I am just concerned that she will perhaps not be able to have children. She can barely move around and stays in bed. She still has nightmares.”
‘IN AGONY’: Nikita Peters, 19, was allegedly kicked in the stomach and back
Geraldine says she cannot understand how the officer is still working: “He is an embarrassment to the police force. I will fight until he is punished for hurting my child.”
A video of the same officer assaulting Nazeem Hardien, 53, breaking his nose and shocking him with a taser was made in Kewtown earlier this week.
Hardien, who sells fish and veggies in his community, was arrested for obstruction of justice, but the charge was dropped yesterday.
“All I told him was to go and have a look at the guys smoking drugs up the block. He grabbed me and assaulted me. I opened a case against him yesterday,” Hardien says.
“The point of the taser got stuck in my body and had to be surgically removed. He is not a police officer, he is a bully.”
Police spokesperson, Captain FC van Wyk, confirmed a case of assault was opened and that the Independent Policing Investigative Directorate (Ipid) is investigating the matter.
And in June last year, a 60-year-old nurse from Kewtown lodged a complaint after Gabriels allegedly slapped, choked and dragged her out of her home.
Veronica Franciscus, 60, and her son Kyle, 31, were wrongfully arrested and the cop even tried to kill her dog, but missed and shot and injured another police officer instead.
And in February this year, Bevan Hermans, 39, claimed he was viciously attacked by Gabriels during a riot in Bokmakierie.
Bevan says he came out of his house to see what the commotion outside was about and the cop allegedly used a taser, which is not police issued, to shock him.