Cape Town - The backlog of murder case investigations in the province is putting an emotional strain on families who have been denied closure after the death of their loved ones.
Marian Kortjie is a mother whose son, Justin, was killed last year. She, along with hundreds of Western Cape families, is still waiting for evidence from the scene of her son’s killing to be analysed.
Justin’s body was found at the Company’s Garden on December 3.
“I have had enough of our justice system that is failing our people dismally. They are creating more broken families and steering our communities into total destruction.
“The wait for information is
torture,” Kortjie said.
Kortjie also lost her pregnant 17-year-old daughter, Keshia, in 2013. Keshia was killed and five years later the family is still seeking justice.
“Up to today, no one has told us exactly how she died; we were cheated out of a fair process by Kensington SAPS, who deliberately kept us in the dark about the case up to the second last day before the perpetrator was sentenced.
“The investigating officer got a slap on the wrist after failing the family dismally,” she said.
The family’s endeavours, which saw them laying numerous complaints with the police ombudsman against the investigating officer, have yielded no results.
Earlier this month, the Bishop Lavis Magistrate’s Court struck the murder case of Jill Fernandez off the roll after failure by the investigating officer to provide a post-mortem report and
crucial evidence and information from witnesses. Fernandez, 49, was killed on December 23 by her boyfriend.
Deidré Foster from the office of the Western Cape Police Ombudsman said that since at its inception, the office had received 2 159 complaints, of which 382 were received in 2019.
“Of these complaints, 76 were in respect of poor investigation and 147 for poor communication. The rest of these complaints fall within other
categories such as unacceptable
behaviour.
“We note that amid all the challenges, there are many men and women within the SAPS who are doing excellent work within the realm of investigation,” Foster said.
A recent report on detective
services in the Western Cape indicated that lack of training,
under-resourcing and poor crime
intelligence were the main causes of the backlog in the province.
The report also found that of the total number of detectives in the
Western Cape, 48% had a caseload
of over 200 dockets, which is 333% above the case norm of 50 to 60 per detective.
Community Safety MEC Albert Fritz said the Western Cape did not have enough detectives to investigate the spate of criminality and gangsterism in the province.
According to Fritz, there is a
shortage of 548 detectives in the province and 142 posts currently remained vacant.
“As an immediate and medium-term strategy, we must begin to
repair the trust and relationships between Saps and our communities,” Fritz said.