FRONEMAN J and, when exercising statutory powers, those officials are the state or public authority itself‖.17 (Footnote omitted.) The difficulties of vicarious liability [100] In K, O‘Regan J considered three factors to be important in her conclusion that the state was vicariously liable in delict. They were that both the state and the policemen had a general statutory and constitutional duty to prevent crime and protect members of the public; that on the facts of the case the policemen had a specific duty to assist the applicant; and that the conduct of the policemen which caused harm constituted a simultaneous commission and omission, the omission being their failure to protect her from harm.18 [101] The majority in the Supreme Court of Appeal19 understood the implications of that approach to be this: ―There are three observations to make in relation to those findings. The first is that the court found that both the state and the policemen personally were under a duty to protect K, and that they omitted to fulfil those duties. It follows that in acting as they did the policemen committed two separate delicts—one was their positive delictual act of assaulting K, and the other was their delictual omission in failing to protect her. The second observation is that I think the inference is clear from the three reasons that were advanced by the learned judge, that the delict for which the state was held liable was not the positive acts of the policemen—for otherwise their omissions would have been immaterial—but instead their delictual omissions. And the third observation is that the conclusion in that case was expressly founded upon vicarious liability for the delicts of the policemen—and not upon direct liability of the state— 17 Baxter above n 9 at 631-2. 18 K above n 1 at paras 51-3. 19 Supreme Court of Appeal judgment above n 4. 40