A man accused of assaulting a woman who criticised police on social media for releasing him on a warning will appear at the Pretoria magistrate’s court on Wednesday in connection with another case.

“The suspect has been arrested for the 2018 case of assault GBH that was opened in Pretoria West in 2018. This is one of the cases that the complainant mentioned on the video clip,” said Brig Brenda Muridili, Gauteng police spokesperson.

In a series of videos posted on social media, the woman, whose eye is clearly bruised, explains how she had opened a case of assault at the Silverton police station in Pretoria on Sunday.

She alleged she had opened multiple cases against the man she described as “making her life a living hell”.

She said she had driven to Mamelodi police station on Saturday night to open a case of assault, but found it was closed. “My abuser is roaming on the streets as we speak. The police did nothing, nothing to help us. When we walked in here they were grovelling to him like a king and I knew something was going to happen,” she is recorded as saying.

“The Silverton police arrested the suspect in the early hours of December 12. The case docket as well as the arrested suspect were then transferred by the Silverton police to SAPS Mamelodi for further investigation as the incident occurred in Mamelodi.”

Muridili said the detective in Mamelodi who was allocated the case charged the 46-year-old suspect with assault and then released him on a warning to appear in court on December 30.

“The [Mamelodi] station commander has also instituted an internal disciplinary investigation into the detective member that released the suspect on warning and failed to liaise with the complainant,” she said.

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