'NPA has found its backbone'

Prosecutors steered away from complex cases for fear it would affect their success rate, Deputy Justice and Constitutional Development Minister John Jeffery said.

He was speaking at a workshop in Durban, aimed at training officials to deal with human trafficking, particularly child smuggling.

Jeffery said performance targets in the prosecuting authority had unforeseen consequences. One problem was that prosecutors did not want to take on complex cases for fear of losing them.

He said the trend had been discovered when legislators were busy crafting the Prevention and Combating of Trafficking in Persons Act.

"When we were busy with the bill, we wanted statistics from the NPA as to the successful prosecutions [of trafficking cases] and we were given a list. We were quite shocked that people were being found guilty but they weren't going to prison.they were being handed massive suspended sentences.

We couldn't work out what was going on but then the NPA told us that this was because of plea bargains. I think the NPA was not confident at that stage to take matters to trial," he said.

"Luckily that has changed. It would seem from the outside that the NPA has found its backbone in the trafficking matters and started fighting them," Jeffery said.