Senior Magistrate, Ephraith Ngwande, of the Village Court, ruled that no one can be held responsible for the death of Kabo Selebogo, a police recruit who died during a swimming exercise at Otse Police College two years ago.
Ngwande said that Selebogo’s death was a result of accidental drowning and that there is no evidence of negligence on the part of any person who was present at the pool at the time of his drowning.
Looking at the evidence before her, she said, it was clear that the class had been dismissed by their instructor before the drowning and that the deceased and his classmates had decided to remain behind as, according to one witness – a colleague of the deceased, they had started enjoying themselves.
Ngwande also said that there was evidence that whilst they were swimming on their own, with their instructor having left for his office, one of the recruits noticed that one of their colleagues, who happened to the be the deceased, had not emerged from the pool. Ngwande said this discovery came after some time because the recruits were jumping into the swimming pool randomly.
Some recruits, who were better swimmers, immediately jumped into the swimming pool to look for their missing colleague but to no avail.
When he was at last spotted, Selebogo was already dead.
The inquest was set up to find out whether or not Selebogo’s death was caused by the negligence of anybody present at the swimming pool on the day of the accident.
A doctor, who gave evidence earlier, had indicated that the deceased had died because of lack of air which was caused by drowning. He also said that the deceased did not have any external injuries.
