An elderly Rugby man says a violent drug user who has “terrorised” him for two years is still roaming the streets because Milnerton police have failed to act.
The 63-year-old pensioner feels police have not done enough to protect him from his alleged tormentor.
He says the man is a vagrant and has assaulted him previously, and last month he gashed his knee trying to run away from him.
The pensioner doesn’t want to be identified because he fears for his safety and the safety of his 78-year-old landlady.
He lives in a granny flat behind his landlady’s house. There are two other flats on the property. The pensioner said the man had done garden work at the property until about two years ago.
“The landlady terminated his employment because he was on drugs and starting to peer through our windows.
“After his dismissal, he started squatting at the front gate of the property. He built a makeshift tent there where he stayed. We would try to chase him out by shouting at him and trying to make neighbours aware that this man was not wanted here. After two months of trying to get rid of him, he just vanished,” said the pensioner.
Then, two weeks later, according to the pensioner, the man started climbing on the roofs of the backyard flats. He threw rocks and a small bar fridge onto another tenant’s car and then threw a brick at the man as well.
That tenant, a 57-year-old man who also did not want to be identified, said the brick had been aimed at his face, but he had deflected it with his elbow. That had happened in September 2017 and he had pressed grievous-bodily-harm (GBH) charges against the man, he said.
The pensioner said the police arrested the man the same month but had released him on the same day. And the harassment had continued.
The pensioner said he had been walking to the shop a few weeks later when he had seen the man again.
“He chased me and beat me up, and I have a broken finger after that encounter.
“I didn’t open a case then because nothing was done the first time he assaulted someone.
“A month ago, I saw him in the road again, and that’s when he chased me. I fell and suffered a big gash on my knee. I opened a case against him this time, but still nothing has been done,” he said.
The old man now walks with a taser and a pocket knife wherever he goes because he is afraid of a chance encounter with the man.
Milnerton police spokeswoman Captain Nopaya Madyibi said they were investigating and a warrant had been issued for the man’s arrest.
“We can confirm that the suspect appeared in court for both assault cases against him and the first case was withdrawn. And there is a warrant of arrest issued against him for his second case, the investigating officer is currently looking for him,” she said.
However, the tenant who opened the first case said he did not know why it had been withdrawn as he had not withdrawn the charges.
The pensioner is angry, saying that his alleged tormentor is still free to roam the streets after harassing him for so long.
“I feel like a prisoner in my own place and we can’t live like this. Why is SAPS not doing all they can to protect its citizens? I’ve appealed to them on many occasions, and the suspect is still terrorising us. We don’t even get any feedback from them on the cases and they know this poses an immediate danger to all of us living here.
“Last year September, we caught him rattling the gate in front and he even broke off the spikes at the top of the gate and he also ripped the post box off. There is just too much going on here for the police not to do anything,” he said.
The landlady said the man was a “good person gone wrong”. He had worked well, she said, until he had started using tik.
“He did good work but then he started doing drugs. When I fired him, he started throwing bricks at my front gate and safety gate. He would jump over the walls and smash my pot plants and break bottles in front of my back door. He has damaged windows and doors on my property,” she said.
She said the man needed help because his true nature was not that of a bad person.
