Fired VIP cop accused of raping daughter gets new chance of reinstatement

24 August 2016 - 11:41 By Farren Collins
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A new arbitration hearing has been ordered to decide on the reinstatement of a VIP Protection Unit policeman who was fired following allegations that he raped his daughter.

Image: Gallo Images / Beeld / Deaan Vivier

The Labour Court in Johannesburg set aside an arbitrator’s earlier ruling that the warrant officer should be reinstated.

He was fired in 2010 after a disciplinary hearing found him guilty of contravening the South African Police Service code of conduct‚ following his arrest for raping his 14-year-old daughter over four years.

He was reinstated in 2013 after successfully appealing to the Safety and Security Sectoral Bargaining Council. The commissioner felt that the “hearsay” evidence used against him at the second hearing “carried insufficient weight” for a dismissal.

At the internal hearing‚ the officer's daughter testified that he raped her approximately twice a month for nearly half a decade. During that time she fell pregnant with his child and had an abortion‚ and also contracted HIV from him‚ she said.

The woman would not make herself available to testify at the appeal‚ saying that she was undergoing therapy and did not wish to reopen old wounds.

“I am not willing to go through the trauma‚” she told the employee representative.

Child protection consultant Joan van Niekerk said courts and hearings dealing with labour issues did not do enough to protect witnesses.

“It's not like the criminal court where she would not have to face her offender in court‚” Van Niekerk said. “Testifying in a labour court or in a disciplinary inquiry is far more traumatising.

“There is no protection for [victims] so her unwillingness to testify in a situation like that is completely understandable.

“We tell women and children to come forward‚ but what can we offer them in the way of services if there is a lack resources in which to provide those services?”

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