Daily Maverick reports that a police captain, formerly the acting head of Visible Police Support at the Joza police station in Makhanda, has won R80,000 in damages against the SA Police Service (SAPS) after posters describing her as a ‘white racist bitch’ were distributed in the police station.

The posters at the station followed a comment she made stating that ‘If you pick up the monkey, you need to feed it’ when referring to taking responsibility for crime prevention vehicles. This comment was construed as racist. While Judge Avinash Govindjee found that the police had not acted with malice in investigating charges brought against Captain Henrietta du Preez, he ruled that the subsequent distribution of posters in the police stations, with many fixed to Du Preez’s office door, describing her as a racist white bitch constituted defamation for which the SAPS was vicariously liable.

It was the police’s case that once the posters were noticed, they were removed. But Govindjee found that the posters were defamatory. He indicated: “What the posters imputed to Du Preez was both demeaning and expressly suggestive of the conclusion that she was racist. The statement that a person is a racist on its own carries a meaning that can defame. As the Labour Court has noted, it is hard to conceive ‘of any place or circumstance or country where, if a person is told that he is racist, it will not be experienced by such person as him or her being insulted and abused’.” He found that the posters had exposed Du Preez to contempt and animosity and made her less worthy of respect by her colleagues.

• Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Estelle Ellis at Daily Maverick

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