A rape victim claims she was dismissed as “too relaxed” and told to investigate her own rape case by police in Khayelitsha when she tried to report the matter.
According to IOL, the woman said she was sexually and physically assaulted by a man on march 27 in Khayelitsha.
She said when she tried to report the matter, she was told by an officer that she needed to find the suspect and conduct her own investigations.
“The officers took down my statement and at 9am we went to the suspect’s house, but we did not find him. The officers then said I did not look like someone who had been through a traumatic experience. I looked ‘too relaxed’. They then said my friend and I must try and trap the suspect and I must investigate when he would be home and (establish) his whereabouts so they could arrest him, but my friend was too terrified to do so as the suspect is a dangerous man,” the woman who preferred to remain anonymous was quoted as saying.
This came as EWN reported last month that Community Safety MEC Albert Fritz wanted the Western Cape Police Ombudsman to conduct a systematic investigation into how rape cases were dealt with by the SAPS.
The report said at the time that of the 131 cases reported to Mitchelles Plain and Lentegeur police stations between March and December last year, there had been 83 arrests and no convictions, while only one trial was under way.
Picture: Cape Town etc gallery