Cape Town - The Correctional Services Department has defended its decision to let one of the country’s most notorious serial sex offenders out on parole and not take action after he was arrested in the very town where he previously targeted women.
Francois Coetzee, 42, has been convicted for crimes including the attempted murder in 1995 of Alix Carmichele, who undertook what became a mammoth battle to prove the State failed to protect her from him.
He was taken into custody a week ago after he was seen carrying a panga in Knysna, but then released because his actions did not constitute a crime.
Coetzee’s release on parole on October 27, his subsequent rearrest and then re-release, left Carmichele fearing he would again try and attack her. She told Weekend Argus she believed he had broken a parole condition by carrying the panga.
But on Saturday provincial Correctional Services Department spokesman Simphiwe Xako said it had “no basis” to revoke Coetzee’s parole.
“Mr Coetzee was arrested and spent some time in a police cell. An investigation by the police showed that allegations of a crime being committed were unfounded. It would therefore be unfair of us to revoke his parole,” he said.
Xako said Coetzee was being strictly monitored as part of his parole conditions. These included frequently reporting to his parole officer.
Xako said Coetzee was fitted with an electronic monitoring device on his ankle, which tracked his movements and would alert authorities if he entered an area his conditions stipulated he may not go into.
“He may not go near his victims,” Xako said.
He explained that if Coetzee entered an area he was not meant to, his ankle bracelet would trigger an alert that would go off in a Correctional Services centre.
Officials there would then be able to alert police and warn his victim if he approached her.
Coetzee’s arrest last week came less than three months after he was released on parole after spending about 20 years in jail.
He nearly killed Carmichele in Noetzie, just outside of Knysna, in 1995. At the time he was he was facing a separate charge of rape, and had a suspended sentence for indecent assault.
Carmichele took on the State, going to the highest court. She successfully sued the ministers of justice and of safety and security for negligence in allowing Coetzee to be released from custody.
The legal battle saw her having to approach the Constitutional Court.
Carmichele said she believed Coetzee would attack her again.
A few days before he attacked her in 1995, she and a friend had told a senior State prosecutor from Knysna about their concerns about Coetzee.
Coetzee had also been sentenced to an effective 12-and-a-half years in jail for trying to kill Carmichele.
Weekend Argus