Oranges took centre stage at the high court in Pretoria on Thursday when a policeman was taken to task for failing to do his job.

The policeman allegedly failed to follow up on a confession of theft of oranges made by a person in his presence.

This was revealed during the trial of Matthew Benson, 25, a North West farmer’s son on trial for the murder of Tebogo Ndlovu, of Majakaneng, and attempted murder of Ndlovu’s two friends in August 2017 at a farm near Mooinooi.

Constable Aaron Mashiyane, a state witness, testified that one of Ndlovu’s two friends, Benny Lerumo, also a state witness, told him they were on the farm to steal oranges but did nothing with this information.

Mashiyane told the court that, at the time of the confession,  he and another police officer were following up on a complaint by Ndlovu’s mother who reported her son missing and told them that his friends had informed her that her son had been shot at a farm in Brits.

Mashiyane added that he and the other police officer transported Ndlovu’s mother and Lerumo, who was with Ndlovu when the alleged incident happened, to the scene of the crime.

He told the court that as they were driving to where the alleged shooting happened “Benny told me that they were at the farm to steal oranges”. 

This immediately caught the attention of the defence, with advocate Jaap Cilliers going for the jugular and demanding to know why Mashiyane did not do his job and ensure that the confession of theft was followed up so that it ended up in court.

"Why did you not act because he admitted to stealing other people's things?" he asked.

Mashiane said he did not act because there was no complaint, to which Cilliers responded: “There was no complaint because the owner (of the farm) was not aware his oranges were stolen and that a person admitted to the crime”

But Mashiane insisted that he could not follow this up without a complaint.

Acting Judge, J Hattingh, joined in the criticism, saying it was expected of a police officer to investigate crime.

“Here was a person at your presence, admitting to a commission of a crime and you are a police officer but you do nothing…it is a dereliction of duty…you in fact played a policeman and court. Police are expected to act upon people committing offences. Your actions make more damage to this case than it can assist,” the judge said.

Cilliers said they will argue in court that the police, in this case Constable Mashiyane, was doing favours for the complainants, including Lerumo.

The trial continues.