Western Cape High Court dismissed a R2.5 million damages claims against the City of Cape Town.
Image: File
A damages claim by Cape Town resident Mark Stemmet against the City of Cape Town after his property was damaged by fire during a Metro Police search of the property was dismissed by the Western Cape High Court.
Stemmet instituted his damages claim in September 2012 after his Hanover Park property and its contents were damaged two years earlier in a fire allegedly caused by two Metro Police officials while conducting a search of the property which was also used as a spaza shop.
The matter was only heard in court in September 2025.
In court papers, he said the officers, Sergeant Norman Absalon and Constable Deon Valentyn, allegedly forced their way into the property and set off a flare in his property, which caused the entire structure and its contents to catch alight.
Stemmet also claimed that they had failed to obtain a search warrant prior to entering the property and should have known that their actions were unlawful or in breach of the Criminal Procedure Act.
He also said the officers had failed to observe safety regulations and standard procedures when they ignited a flare in a residential home.
Stemmet sued the City for R2.5 million for restoration of the immovable property, damage to movable assets and general damages.
In its defence, the City pleaded that its officers had executed a lawful search and seizure operation, and that one of the officers unknowingly activated a flare which was stored amongst other objects in a dark room on the property, which caused the flare to ignite.
The court papers said the police officers had attempted to extinguish the fire but were unable to do so.
This led to the fire services being dispatched to the scene and extinguishing the fire on the property.
While the City admitted that the fire caused damage to the property, it denied that its officers were negligent.
After hearing evidence from witnesses, which included a neighbour, Stemmet and the Metro Police officers, among others, Judge Masudah Pangarker found that the search warrant was valid.
Pangarker also found that the officers were authorised to conduct the search pursuant to information received about drugs and ammunition due to be received or delivered at the property.
There was also no evidence or submission explaining why a Metro Police officer would wish to deliberately and/or recklessly fire a flare into a house still occupied by their colleagues busy performing official duties.
“Furthermore, even if one were to consider that the officers may have left the scene after the arrests, it would still defy logic that the defendant’s members would, in full view of neighbours, fire a flare into residential property," the judge said.
Pangarker said based on the evidence and submissions made that a flare-induced fire was not reasonably foreseeable to a reasonable police officer.
“If anything, it was an extraordinary event encountering a flare during a search operation in a storeroom, which may be described as remote and unlikely.”
She added Stemmet failed to prove that Absalon had triggered the flare that ignited the fire.
“My finding is that the inference of negligence on the part of Absalon because of the ignition of the flare which led to the fire, does not occur … I find that the plaintiff has not discharged the onus of proving that the Metro Police officers, and thus the defendant, were negligent in the circumstances as pleaded,” Pangarker said when she dismissed the application with costs.
Follow the story
