Dockets in the loo no cause for stink

A CONCERNED resident contacted the Zululand Observer this week after visiting the ladies toilet at the Empangeni SAPS station.

Stacked in boxes there are hundreds of documents, some the resident believed to be criminal investigation dockets.

Cellphone photographs of the documents led the ZO to investigate further.

‘These documents are administrative documents, and certainly not active dockets,’ said SAPS spokesperson Captain Mbongeni Mdlalose.

‘The bathroom in question is also a staff only bathroom that is kept locked in the afternoons.’

Capt Mdlalose then took the ZO on a tour of the secure store rooms where the dockets are kept.

‘As you can see we keep these dockets very securely where no member of the public has access to them.’

Owing to a current standing order, the SAPS are not allowed to discard any dockets, even those for petty crimes.

‘Usually we would destroy petty crime dockets after about three years, now we have to keep everything.’

In an older storeroom, dockets from as far back as 1996 are kept as per regulations for more serious crimes.

The hundreds of dockets filed away every year bear testament to the massive number of crimes the Empangeni SAPS deal with on a daily basis.

Crimes of the past

After a visit to the criminal docket archives of the Empangeni SAPS, the ZO decided to have a look at some of the crimes we covered 20 years ago, in 1996.

•‘Army ambush survivor speaks out’ – 2 December. A harrowing tale of survival told by Clinton Schreiber after a shooting left two of his friends dead.

•‘Outrage over escape of ‘Bottle and Can’ murder suspects’ – 4 November. Two men accused of murdering employees of the Bottle and Can store calmly walk out of the Empangeni Magistrate’s Court.

•Red-haired con caught red-handed’ – 7 June. The antics of a flame-haired Richards Bay woman came to an abrupt end after an article in the ZO alerted residents to her fraudulent ways.