Perjury.
What is it exactly and how can you become guilty of it?
In a nutshell, perjury is the offence of wilfully telling an untruth or making a misrepresentation under oath. And it happens much more frequently than people think.
There are many ways to commit this crime, but a very common way is to exaggerate the value of stolen goods for insurance purposes.
According to Captain Tania Helfrich, a spokesperson for the West Coast Police District, victims of theft or a burglary, can easily make themselves guilty of this criminal act when they lie under oath about the items or value of the items that were stolen from them.
People usually do this for insurance claim purposes, but a fraudulent claim for payment for a loss is a crime.
Helfrich warns victims not to exaggerate the size of the flat-screen television and not to lie about the value or the brand of the cellphone or laptop that were stolen from their house.
The spokesperson said the district had recently seen an increase in these type of cases.
One example is a woman (24) from Elandsbaai arrested on a charge of perjury recently after it had come to light that she lied in her statement to the police, in which she had claimed to have been an eyewitness in a burglary-and-theft case.
The woman appeared in the Piketberg Magistrates’ Court on 7 March.
