Oscar probation officer’s soft approach

Oscar Pistorius during the second day of his sentencing process. Probation officer Annette Vergeer argued that prison facilities will not cater for Pistorius's emotional and physical needs. Picture: Themba Hadebe

Oscar Pistorius during the second day of his sentencing process. Probation officer Annette Vergeer argued that prison facilities will not cater for Pistorius's emotional and physical needs. Picture: Themba Hadebe

Published Oct 15, 2014

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Johannesburg - She recommended house arrest for a man who had beaten up his wife into a vegetative coma.

She also recommended correctional supervision as a suitable sentence for teenagers who had gunned down their 17-year-old housemate and kept it a secret for three days, saying the pair stood the risk of being sodomised in prison.

In 2010, she recommended Molemo “Jub-Jub” Maarohanye as a suitable candidate for correctional supervision as prisons were “devastating “ and overcrowded.

And between November 2008 and October 2011, girls as young as 12 fell victim to the man who probation officer Annette Vergeer had recommended as a suitable candidate for correctional supervision – the Sunday rapist.

Jaco Steyn had been sentenced to doing community service at a Krugersdorp hospital and on the Sundays that he sexually molested and raped the girls, he had told his wife he was at the hospital.

In the High Court in Pretoria on Tuesday, Vergeer lashed the South African prison system, saying jails were unhygienic, overcrowded and not suitable for Oscar Pistorius as he was likely to fall victim to gang rapes and sodomy attacks.

She again recommended community service, raising the ire of State advocate Gerrie Nel, who accused her of applying a one-size-fits-all approach to all cases she compiles probation reports for.

Vergeer had argued that prison facilities will not cater for Pistorius’s emotional and physical needs, saying “all that prison will do is punish him in a manner that is not practical”.

“It could not be appropriate punishment in the case of the accused. His disability and state of mind will cause him to experience excessive punishment.

“There are also no facilities to cater for a person with his needs… no railing in the showers. It would not assist him but break him, and a broken person will be reintroduced to society.

“Exposure of the accused to other offenders on his stumps will have an effect on him. If they take away his legs, he won’t be able to stand up for himself… to protect himself,” said Vergeer, adding that the Correctional Services Department was in dire need of professionals such as psychologists and social workers to cater for Pistorius’s mental wellbeing.

But this approach, Nel pointed out, was a one-size-fits-all approach Vergeer had undertaken in most cases she had been called in to testify in mitigation of sentencing.

“Even if the accused had been convicted of murder (as in the Maarohanye conviction, which has since been reduced to culpable homicide), you would have argued that he should not go to prison because of the conditions?” Nel asked.

Vergeer’s response was “no”. She looked at each case according to the convict’s personal circumstances, she said.

 

Probed further on her report, Vergeer stunned the court when she said she had got information on the state of South African prisons from the internet.

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The Star

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