| Apr 16, 2013 |
Cape Town – Police have fired a captain for turning away a woman who had
wanted to lodge a complaint against a Mossel Bay policeman she accused of
raping her.
The woman said she had been raped by a reservist inside the trauma room
of KwaNonqaba’s satellite station at Herbertsdale on February 15 when she went
to lodge a complaint of domestic violence.
The captain is the second officer to be sacked in the case.
Earlier, a 52-year-old police reservist alleged to have raped the woman
was fired after an internal disciplinary hearing, and is facing a criminal
charge of rape, said Moses Dlamini, spokesman for the Independent Police
Investigative Directorate.
The woman said when she reported the rape at the same station the
following day, the captain “dismissed her claims as not serious and failed to
institute criminal proceedings against the suspect”, said police spokesman
Andrè Traut.
After instituting disciplinary proceedings against the captain in
February, provincial commissioner General Arno Lamoer on Monday confirmed the
findings of a disciplinary panel to dismiss him.
Asked to name the captain, Traut refused, saying the dismissal was an
internal matter which the captain could appeal against.
Sharon Messina, from NGO Women on Farms Project, said women routinely
faced difficulties in reporting domestic violence to police. “Women say that
when they go to the police station to report domestic abuse the police say that
if nothing has happened, they can’t do anything,” said Messina.
She said women often feared being targeted for simply reporting cases to
the police.
Cape Times
http://thegremlin.co.za/mossel-bay-news/wordpress/2013/04/16/captain-fired-over-ignored-rape-charge/
