Episode 3. The Dodgy Police Report

Reverend Hamilton’s Police Statement.

There is a particular kind of cold that has nothing to do with temperature, and I felt it that morning sitting in a police station in Fishhoek, watching Reverend Joseph Hamilton fill in the accident report, resplendent in his frock (cassock? robe? gown? dress? I’m honestly not fluent in Church Garb Terminology), to add an air of authenticity to what he was about to write.

Photo snapped in Fishhoek Police Station of Rev Joseph Hamilton.

He did not ask how I was, offer an apology, or even a “Sorry”. Not once. Not at the scene, not during the drive to the station, not while we sat together under the fluorescent lights filling in forms, and not afterwards. Not ever. I covered his manner at the scene in Episode 1, so I won't dwell on it here, but it bears a brief mention because it sets the context for what follows.

This was not a man in shock, wrestling with guilt, or struggling to find the right words. He was composed, efficient, and businesslike, filling in that report the way a man fills in a form he has filled in before. All he had to say, after I asked how he was, was a moan about his sore knee and elbow.

I, on the other hand, was beginning to unravel quietly. I think the effects of delayed PTSD were slowly kicking in. I was quite happy to let him tend to the paperwork.

I got into his friend’s car that morning because I had no alternative; my own beloved bakkie was not drivable. I signed the accident report without reading it, and I want to say that plainly because it matters enormously to what comes next. I signed a document written by the man who had just rear-ended me at 70 km/h, and I did not read a single word of it.

Why? Because, as a “man of the cloth”, it did not occur to me that he would lie.

My bakkie was just this “truck” parked in the road, indicating to turn right.

Verbatim, this is the full explanation Reverend Joseph Hamilton offered for the accident:

"Truck in front of me was turning right- sun was in front of us and I hit the back of the truck."

That is it. That is the complete account given by a man who had just caused a collision that would permanently alter my life.

I only read his statement days later, after calling FH station to request a copy. I was really trying to get his email address, but he omitted to add that. He had studiously avoided my SMSs requesting it. Curiously, he didn’t fill that in on the report, either. See below:

Let me take it apart.

At the scene, in front of independent witness Mr Andrew Whitaker, who had stopped with his wife to render assistance, Hamilton told an entirely different story. He said he simply had not seen my vehicle. There was no mention of the sun, no suggestion that anything external had impaired his vision, and no qualification of any kind. He had not seen me, he admitted it freely, and Mr Whitaker recorded it in his signed witness statement.

His “sun defence” appeared later, in the police report, at the point where a frank admission needed to become a plausible excuse.

The problem with that excuse is that it is astronomically impossible, and I mean that in the most literal sense. Just looking at the photographs makes it as plain as day. I returned to the location two days later, at the exact time the accident occurred. I was hoping to retrieve some car parts, but you can clearly see where the sun is.

To be precise, on 24 February 2023, at 18:30 SAST, at the location of Silvermine Gate 2 on Ou Kaapse Weg, the sun was setting in the west-northwest, at approximately 255 to 260 degrees azimuth. Ou Kaapse Weg at that point runs roughly north-south, and Hamilton was travelling northward toward Cape Town. The sun was significantly to his left, not ahead of him, not in his eyes, and not remotely consistent with his written claim.

The position of the sun at any given time, date, and location on Earth is a matter of verifiable astronomical record, calculable to the degree. I have done exactly that using suncalc.org, pinned to the precise location on Ou Kaapse Weg where the accident occurred, and the result is published in the image below:

X marks the spot. The darker orange line indicates where the sun is setting on that particular day.

The sun was not in front of him. It could not have been. He knew that when he wrote it. He wrote it anyway, on an official police document, and signed his name beneath it. For the record, making a false declaration in a police report is a criminal offence under South African law, and I note this not as a threat but simply because it is a fact, and facts are rather the point here.

There is one further detail in his statement worth pausing on. He referred to my vehicle throughout as a "truck." My Nissan Hardbody, my fully-paid bakkie I depended on entirely, a vehicle now a technical write-off with damage exceeding R100k, became in his account a generic truck, an obstacle he happened to inconveniently encounter. Not a person's livelihood, not someone's only means of transport, and not something that belonged to a human being who was sitting a few feet away from him in a state of shock. A truck.

I left the police station that morning, having signed a document I had not read, containing a lie I did not yet know about, in the company of the man who had just changed my life. They dropped me off and drove away, and I have not heard from him since, not voluntarily, not honestly, and not in any manner befitting the collar he wears, or deserving of the title of Reverend. On the contrary, he avoided me. Then he blocked me.

But I am still here, and I am still writing.