Charges against a Durban man arrested for breaking the curfew — when he went out to help a friend left stranded after being mugged — were dropped on Monday morning.

On Sunday, Stuart Johnson of a financial services company in Durban tweeted that an employee had been arrested in the city centre when he went out to help a friend, whose car had broken down.

The friend and his passenger had been mugged while trying to repair the vehicle.  

“Arrested, charged, no leeway,” Johnson said.

He said the employee was in the company's graduates' programme and that a criminal record would see him disbarred.

“We've paid a R15,000 deposit to an attorney to make sure he has a chance of diversion,” Johnson tweeted.

On Monday, the employee, who didn’t want to be named, told TimesLIVE he was relieved that the prosecutor had dropped the charges before he could appear in court.

However, he would never forget the “scary” ordeal, which included him being held in police holding cells.

“I live with two other flatmates. One of their cars broke down in the city centre and while he was trying to repair it, he was mugged, so there was no way for him to contact us for help. Eventually, someone passing by agreed to give his girlfriend a lift to us,” he said.

She arrived at the flat after midnight.

The 25-year-old man and his flatmate went out to help but their jumper cables were defective, so they drove to two service stations to borrow a set.

The police stopped them en route to the third service station.

“We told them what was going on but they insisted we were lying. They refused to listen to us. We even told them that our flatmate was stranded two minutes away but they refused to listen. They then arrested us,” the man said.

He said he was desperate to get out of the holding cells. “I was worried about my friend, who was stranded. It was also a Sunday and work was the next day. I was so distressed that having a criminal record would impact on my job now and my future in the industry. My future would have just been done if I got a criminal record.”

The man said he was relieved that the charges were dropped. “I was very nervous last night. It was a very scary experience. It was a first time experience and it is not something anyone ever wants to experience, especially in a case when you know you have done nothing wrong. You haven't gone against the rules. You were just assisting a friend in an emergency situation.”

Johnson said he was concerned about the incident because it was an injustice and “just an unpleasant experience”.

“The police didn’t apply the law very well because the regulations specifically state in clause 17(b) that if it's a security or medical emergency, you can break curfew. This certainly was a security emergency,” he said.

The police have been approached for comment. This article will be updated when it is received.

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