Police bail is the amount of money which an accused in a criminal matter pays for his/her freedom before formally appearing in a court of law. Chapter 9 of our Criminal Procedure Act 51 of 1977 makes provision for police bail. This amount may range between anything below R2,000.00 – usually the investigating officer uses his/her discretion based on your affordability and the charge.

In simple terms, the effect of bail is to ensure that the accused does honour his/her court appearance on the given date and does not flee and risk forfeiting his bail money to the State after getting released from custody. However, an accused may only be released on police bail if he/she is accused of the following charges:

• Assault;
• Crimen injuria (defamation);
• Theft, where the value of the stolen goods is less than R2,500.00;
• Drunk driving and reckless or negligent driving;

There are more serious charges of which an accused first needs to appear in a court of law in order to apply for bail formally. For the following charges, police bail cannot be granted:

• Murder;
• Armed robbery;
• Rape and crimes of sexual nature committed against a minor or mentally unstable person;
• Human trafficking;
• Kidnapping;
• Theft, receiving of stolen property, fraud or forgery, if the amount is above R20,000.00;
• Abduction.

Police bail may be granted and/or ----- by any police official of or above the rank of non-commissioned officer, if the accused deposits the required sum of money at the relevant police station. The accused should thereafter be provided with a receipt in order to claim back his/her money after the matter has been finalised.