Child raped and left for dead, but police do nothing

Co parents can now move their children between their homes during lockdown. Photo credit: (File Photo)

But in the past two-and-a-half months, the police at Katlehong Police Station in Ramokonopi have done very little to catch the perpetrator.

Last week, Zandile’€™s mother, Thandi*, was forced to surrender her children to foster care as she fears for their lives because the man has threatened to kill them.

Thandi spent December trying to trace the perpetrator, and managed to get the address of his new workplace.

She gave the address to the investigating officer, Warrant Office Mokopo Maedi in January. But when the police went to the workplace last week, the man was apparently sick and they have not been back.

Thandi also says that the police took almost a week to visit her shack to collect evidence after the attack, although Maedi denies this and says forensic evidence was collected from Zandile by a doctor when she was admitted to hospital.

Abusive calls

Since attacking Zandile, the man, whose name is known to Health-e, has also made a number of abusive phone calls to Thandi.

However, according to Maedi: ‘€œThe suspect is on the run and we are tracing him. I have been encouraging those phone calls as part of my tactics to trace him.’€

After the attack, Thandi was asked to leave her shack by the owner who said she had brought ‘€œbad luck’€ to the place.

‘€œI don’€™t know how to protect my children because I have no place to stay and this man is still not arrested,’€ said Thandi, who was not at home when her ex-partner broke into the shack and only found Zandile choking in her own blood when she returned at around 2am.

‘€œAfter doing this thing to my child, he phoned me and said when she is out of hospital he will come back and kill all of us,’€ said Thandi.

Defenceless and terrified, Thandi asked social workers to take care of Zandile and five-year-old Thabo*, who witnessed his sister being attacked.

Last Friday, Zandile was taken from Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital, where she has been since the attack, and placed in foster care.

The quiet, stick-thin girl seldom talks and when she does, she ekes out a few words at a time in a tiny, rasping whisper.   A jagged white scar encircles her throat, while another runs diagonally down from her left ear.

Internal pain

Her attacker’€™s knife severed her windpipe and cut through a nerve on her vocal chord so she could not speak for many weeks.  Luckily, the nerve on her vocal chord has regenerated, enabling Zandile to start talking again.

While her external wounds have healed well, Zandile’€™s dull eyes provide a glimpse of her internal pain. She has now lost her mother, her home and her peace of mind since the attack.

‘€œThis man is clearly dangerous and the police should have done their best to arrest him,’€ said Lisa Vetten, from the Tshwaranang Legal Advocacy Centre.

‘€œBut the biggest problem with the police is the lack of consistency. It is like a lottery. The outcome depends on the police station and the investigating officer.’€

Meanwhile, Allison Wainwright, head of Gauteng government’€™s victim empowerment unit in the Department of Community Safety, promised to investigate why police had taken so long to arrest the suspect in such a serious case.

* Names have been changed to protect the child involved.

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