A policeman accused of raping a woman in the station’s toilet overdosed on tranquillisers the day he was arrested, a court has heard.
|||Cape Town - A police officer accused of raping a woman in the toilet of Elsies River police station overdosed on tranquillisers the day he was arrested, the Western Cape High Court has heard.
Constable Jaede Fillies’s lawyer, Adrian Montzinger, called doctor Quanita Gool to verify that she had prescribed five Adco-alzam tablets to Fillies a day before his arrest.
Gool, a general practitioner in Elsies River, testified on Thursday that Fillies had seen her on July 29, 2010 and complained that he was under stress.
She testified that after consulting with him she decided to prescribe the pills to calm him and help him sleep.
Gool booked Fillies off from work as she wanted him to see a psychologist. She said if he was on the medication, he would not have been able to perform his duties effectively. But Fillies went to work the next day anyway.
On July 30, 2010, police arrested Fillies for his alleged role in the rape and kidnapping of a 29-year-old woman. Fillies had testified earlier during a trial-within-a-trial that he took three tablets that morning instead of a half-tablet as prescribed by Gool.
Gool said side effects of the drug included sedation, drowsiness, disorientation and memory loss. If Fillies had taken three that morning, the side effects would’ve been more severe.
Fillies’s defence will argue that he was not of a sound and sober mind at the time his statement was taken and that it should therefore not be admitted as evidence.
The State alleges Fillies and one of his co-accused, Theodore Syster, kidnapped the woman and her boyfriend from Viking Park, Epping, on June 15, 2010 and took them to the police station. Her boyfriend paid a R100 public nuisance fine and was told to leave.
Syster allegedly raped the woman inside a toilet at Elsies River police station while Fillies allegedly filmed part of the ordeal on a cellphone. Two others, admin clerk Beverly Carelse and constable Theo van Wyk, are also on trial for being accessories to the crime.
Closing arguments in the trial-within-a-trial are expected to be heard on Monday.
jade.witten@inl.co.za
Cape Argus