Friday, October 30, 2009

Rape not a 'crime' for Paarl Police - Mail & Guardian online 30 October 2009

By  Glynnis Underhill  
   A crime intelligence document leaked to M&G reveals that an identified suspect accused of raping three women in the Western Cape last year was allowed to roam free because the cases were allegedly among those not registered and investigated by police.
   The alledged rapes took place in Paarl and Paarl East, the document says. It says that many sexual offences reported at Paarl, Paarl East, Mbekweni and Wellington police stations were not registered on the police crime administration system for months, and in some instances years.
   Some of the cases that were not registered involved children as young as four and five.

The cases were allegedly written up as 'inquiries' by police, according to police sources.

   As they were not registered on the police crime administration system, no detectives were assigned to investigate them, they said, and no arrests were made.
The cases were finally registered on the police crime administration system on June 15 this year and detectives were put on to the cases.

   The leaked document says that the family of a four-year-old girl who had allegedly been raped gave police the name and address of the suspect. The case was reported to police on October 10 2007, but was only registered on the police crime administration system two years later. The child had been taken by the suspect to his shack, where he allegedly raped her. No arrest was made, the document says.

   Another of the cases that was not registered or investigated involved a nine-year-old girl who was allegedly raped by five unknown juveniles.

   A 60-year-old woman, allegedly raped while she was sleeping, provided the suspect's name and address, but no arrests were made, as no investigation was launched.

   The cases were registered on the crime administration system shortly before Western Cape's community Safety Minister Lennit Max asked the Independent Complaints Directorate [ICD] to investigate the manipulation of crime statistics at stations in Paarl, Paarl East, Mbekweni, Wellington and Oudtshoorn.

   A police document given to the M&G by Western Cape police commissioner Mzwandile Petros reveals how, in 2004, he wrote to deputy provincial commissioners and area commissioners to tell them that he had been informed that cases reported, particularly at weekends, were not being registered timeously on the crime administration system.

   Failure to register reported crimes timeously resulted in the provincial commissioner being presented with an inaccurate picture of the crime situation, Petros wrote.

"The practice relating to the late registration of crimes should cease with immediate effect," Petros ordered.
 
   The M&Greported last week that a police report leaked to the newspaper alleged that Captain Hildegard Mackier, at the Paarl police station, was responsible for manipulating crime statistics to reflect lower incidence of crime.

   The report was sent to Petros on June 15 this year by director Vincent Beaton, who had just been appointed station commissioner in Paarl.

   Beaton wrote that the acting commander of the Paarl [FCS] Family Violence, Child Protection and Sexual Offences Unit had told him that former Paarl policed station commander Mzwandile Tiyo had instructed officers not to open rape cases, but rather to record them as inquiries.

   Police spokesperson Billy Jones said the ICD was still investigating the allegations and that Mackier and Tiyo might be investigated. "Although the officers [Mackier and Tiyo] seem egaer to dispute these allegations, it would be improper for them to comment in the media when they still have to be interviewd by the ICD," Jones said.

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