Max attacks police boss
June 24 2009 at 07:07AM
More than 50 rape cases - some involving children as young as four - were never noted or investigated by police in the Western Cape because they didn’t want their crime statistics to look bad, Community Safety MEC Lennit Max said on Tuesday.
And he also said that provincial police commissioner Mzwandile Petros had been either ignorant or dishonest about the matter.
Max made these allegations when he announced he had asked the police watchdog, the Independent Complaints Directorate (ICD), to investigate these and other serious crimes that had been reported to police in the province, who had not investigated them.
Max has asked the ICD to probe the alleged manipulation of crime statistics at the Paarl, Paarl East, Mbekweni and Wellington police stations.
Max says Petros told him previously that there was “nothing wrong” at the Paarl police station after allegations of malpractice surfaced and were investigated. But last week, a senior officer showed Max documents and sworn statements detailing the alleged manipulation of statistics at the Paarl police station, which contradicted what Petros had told him.
Max said he had also received information from police officers at the four stations about statistics being tampered with.
According to the information he gathered, 56 rape cases reported in and around Paarl, dating back to January 2 two years ago and up to May this year, had not been registered as criminal cases on the police’s database and officers had instead treated them as inquiries - meaning the rapes were recorded but not investigated.
At the Paarl East police station, 19 rape cases had been reported, but allegedly not investigated. At the Mbekweni station, 16 reported cases had allegedly not been investigated. At Paarl, 13 reported rapes had allegedly not been investigated. In Wellington, eight cases appeared not to have been investigated.
“As a direct result of these malpractices, young victims were deprived of proper police investigations and perpetrators are walking free,” Max said.
He said 27 cases, including burglaries and the theft of cars, had been registered at the four police stations as malicious damage to property - a less serious crime - and 38 serious crimes, including fraud and robbery, had instead been registered as theft.
The crimes have since been reregistered accurately and are now being investigated.
Max said allegations of crimes being recorded as less serious than they were had also surfaced at the Oudtshoorn police station, and he feared the manipulation of crime statistics he had so far been notified of was only a fraction of what had occurred at the province’s 147 police stations.
As only station commissioners and cluster commanders at police stations had the authority to decide how a crime is classified, Max said this meant if allegations of manipulating statistics were true, senior officers were to blame.
The MEC said he had previously approached Petros about the possibility of crime statistics being tampered with, specifically at the Paarl police station, but Petros had told him this had been investigated and that the allegations had been found to be false.
“He told me it was people just being malicious; that they had something against the directors and these were the only discrepancies found.”
On Tuesday, days after getting documents from the senior officer about manipulation of statistics at the Paarl station, Max contacted Petros, who, he said, then told him he “must do what (he) must do”.
“If it is found there has been a cover-up, that individual behind it will be dealt with,” was all Max was willing to say about what action would be taken against the individuals involved.
Yesterday, Petros’s spokesperson, Novela Potelwa, said the police had decided a fuller media response than an e-mail would be required, and a press briefing was planned for tomorrow.
Max yesterday lodged a complaint with the ICD’s regional head, Thabo Leholo, about the alleged tampering with statistics.
Hours after meeting Max, Leholo said he had to read the statements Max had provided before he could comment.
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