Employee admits using pepper spray to disperse crowd outside Enyobeni

Former Enyobeni Tavern employee Thembisa Diko has told the East London Regional Court sitting in Mdantsane that she used pepper spray towards an uncontrollable crowd outside the Enyobeni Tavern on the night, when 21 underage patrons died.

Diko is a witness in the inquest into the death of the 21 young people in 2022. She says she used the spray to try and disperse the uncontrollable crowd.

Diko further told the court that only two bouncers were controlling the crowd at the main door on the evening of the incident.

She adds that she tried to tell owner Siyakhangela Ndevu about the uncontrollable crowd that was dangerously pressing them against the wall, but he failed to intervene.

She says after realising that Ndevu didn’t care about the crisis, she went inside the tavern to drink. Diko told the court that she only used the pepper spray outside the main entrance doors.

“What happened is that these kids tried to do their thing of pushing us against the door so that they could get entry and I noticed that they were going to injure us, and I took a pepper spray, and I sprayed at them. Before I sprayed Mr Ndevu passed by and I asked him did he see that it was full and he hung his hands in the air with no action,”

Meanwhile, the owner of the tavern has accused the court of protecting witnesses, saying he will prove this once he takes the stand.

The inquest seeks to establish whether anyone can be held criminally liable for the deaths of the 21 young people at the tavern in June 2022.

The case will continue with Diko still on the stand.