Lucky Escape Artist
A few months ago there was a rape suspect that escaped from the police station in Kwamakutha, which is just south of Durban. We had been working with the cops on the case and nobody could understand how he escaped custody, when there is only one holding cell at the police station.
We did everything in our capacity to push on with the case in hope he would be found and justice delivered. We continued counselling the victim and nagging the investigating officer. We always need to nag the I/O’s as they are swamped with work and often they don't follow through with cases as quickly as we want them to.
We nagged and we nagged until the cops told us to look for the suspect. So we became detectives and started looking and asking questions, but alas, nothing came from our efforts.
Fast forward a few months, we get a call from Folweni police station,which is a little further south of Kwamakutha, asking us to look after an abandoned 6 year old girl they found.
So we go to the station, get the child and bring her back to Bobbi Bear. She is quiet and withdrawn, but has a good nature and a beautiful smile. We make sure she is fed and bathed, we give her some new clothes to wear and a whole bunch of toys to play with. The bed she will sleep in for the next few days is probably the warmest and most comfy sleep she has ever had. The little girl will stay at Bobbi Bear until her parents come forward to claim her, if they don't then she will go to an orphanage.
She was at Bobbi Bear two nights until her mom came to the police station. We set up a meeting with her to discuss the way forward. These things happen more often than you may think.
Now back to the suspect who escaped custody.
In the meeting with the mom, we discovered that the child's biological father is the suspect who escaped. Now bear in mind that this child is not the victim of the rape in which the suspect is charged, that's why we didn't tie it together initially. So now we had way forward with our case, but had to be careful with how to proceed, so that the suspect didn't run away and go into hiding.
We convinced the mom that it was vital for both parents to be at our next meeting, where we would give their child back and then everyone would be happy. She was reluctant, but eventually agreed. She had no idea that we knew her husband was a suspect in a rape case.
The meeting was set for the evening, so we got in touch with the investigating officer and told them we had found the suspect, but had to be clever about getting him. They wanted to go in guns blazing, but we were concerned for the child and convinced them to go with our plan.
We arrived at the meeting and met the parents, once we were sure the dad was there, we sent a message to the cops. They swiftly rolled in and arrested the suspect. We acted shocked and surprised, as if we had no idea what was going on, so that the mother would still take our advice about her own child. If she knew it was us who planned it all, she would find a way to blame the child and punishment would ensue.
This way everything would go smoothly and the child would be back with her mother and the dad would be back in custody to face the courts for the charge of allegedly raping a minor. Of course we didn't want this little girl to have to be around him either. Plus we weren't sure if he had done something to her, so we still had to convince the mom to take her to the hospital for a medical examination.
When the cops arrested him, the mother was shocked, she said: “don't worry my love, they just want to talk to you, they wont keep these handcuffs on.” We asked her why she hadn't told us he was a suspect in a rape case? She was protecting him, she doesn't believe he did it.
So the child went back home with the mother whilst the father went to the holding cells at Toti Police station, we were happy the plan had worked, and we could sleep knowing justice would be handed down.
The suspect is named Lucky, and we joked that he thought he was lucky, but karma always has a way of getting you, and he wasn’t actually lucky after all. We laughed about it at first but the next day we weren't laughing.
The suspect was in court the next day for his first appearance, naturally we were there to make sure we knew what was going on with the case. In court the guy said that he had paid the cops R5000 to let him go the first time, that's how he escaped! so what did the court do? Did they charge him for bribing an officer? Did they charge him for obstructing justice? No, they let him go, and the charges were dropped. Everyone was shocked and disgusted.
The cops that were on duty the day he ‘’escaped” were all arrested, and they await their fate. We got blamed for blowing it out of proportion, and the station are not happy with us at all. To the point of threats being made towards us. The Premiers office was there to have a meeting and the press flocked. The community were up in arms about the situation, because there is a lot of corruption at Kwamakutha, but nothing ever gets done.
As it stands, the guy is free, he carries on with his life and the girl still hasn't been to the hospital for a medical examination. Sadly we cant force anything now. We have to wait and see what the Premiers office can do to weed out the corruption. So it seems the man was really Lucky after all.