MOSSEL BAY NEWS - After 35 years, five months and nine days serving in the police force, Detective Warrant Officer Arlene Stokes will officially retire on 30 June.
With a career spanning three decades and hundreds of arrests and investigated cases, Stokes said life as a police officer had called to her from an early age.
"I just always felt like I must join the police, but back then, if you were under 21, your parents had to sign the contract on your behalf. My parents didn't want to, so I went to Bloemfontein to start studying law at the University of the Free State," she said.
After three years, her parents changed their minds, and she joined the South African Police Service on 21 January 1991.
Following her training, she was placed in the Bloemfontein Flying Squad before spending a few months at the Bram Fischer International Airport in Bloemfontein. After this, she spent some time working on investigations relating to the Convention for a Democratic South Africa (Codesa).
In 1994, she went for her detective course. "I was pointed out as the best learner in the course, and got a huge trophy for that," she said.
Her work as a fully fledged detective then began.
Warrant Officer Arlene Stokes during her training in Pretoria in 1991.
One of her first, most heart-breaking cases involved her being shot at multiple times and witnessing a murder. "I arrested a suspect who was beating his wife. This was before the domestic violence law came into place."
She said the woman had asked Stokes to accompany her to her husband's attorney's office one day.
"When we came out of his office, the suspect was outside, waiting for us," she said. The man shot his wife dead in front of Stokes before firing his gun three times at the young detective. He then turned the gun on himself.
"That was a very bad situation for me as a new detective," she said.
After that, Stokes worked as a detective in internal investigations before the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (Ipid), and was then moved to the Bloemfontein Vehicle Theft Unit. By this time, she was a single mother of two young daughters, one of whom was diagnosed as being on the spectrum. "It became hard for me to go to scenes at night."
She asked for a transfer to Mossel Bay, where her parents lived, and moved here in 2010.
Stokes spent a few days at the Mossel Bay Police Station before she was moved to Da Gamaskop, where she has been ever since.
She was later appointed the group leader of four other detectives, and said she has enjoyed her time at the station and with her colleagues.
When asked about her most memorable case, she said it was an ongoing one: the kidnapping and murder of Hartenbos businessman Desmond Share in 2023.
The trial for this case is set for 12 August.
Asked about the Mossel Bay community, she said they have often assisted the police, and without their help, she believes the crime rates would be much higher than they currently are.
Stokes said a special mention needs to be made of Philip Mattheus, the former Da Gamaskop CPF chairperson, and Hannelie Marais, the current chairperson, for their work with the police and the community.
Stokes will now be focusing on her family: her husband, whom she met here in Mossel Bay and who has been extremely supportive of her, her children and career; her two daughters; and her elderly father, who was recently diagnosed with Alzheimer's and dementia.
"It is time that I put my family first now ... I am going to start enjoying family life and life as a whole now, relax and get well physically and mentally," she said.
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