Picking a Battle: The accused speaks out
For the first time since he was accused of assaulting a minor, a father opens up about the incident to Terence Pillay.
LISTEN: Terence Pillay speaks to the father accused of assaulting a minor - Catch the full interview below:
Last week I followed up on a story that I did last year about a primary school child who was allegedly assaulted by the parent of another child at his school.
In May 2016 Andrew Guy, a father of a 13-year-old boy got a call from his son’s school asking him to come and fetch his child who had just been assaulted. Racing to the school, Andrew found that it wasn’t an altercation with another child at the school but a parent.
Andrew alleges that after a disagreement with a girl his son was grabbed by his neck by the girl’s father, who dragged him along the ground and punched him on his face several times.
Andrew took his son to the doctor for treatment and then laid a charge of assault at the Malvern Police Station.
At the time the police said the matter was being prioritised because it involved a minor, but despite it being a year later, no real progress has been made on this case. In fact, in a written statement last week, Captain Nqobile Gwala from SAPS Communications had this to say:
“A case of assault common is still being investigated by Malvern SAPS. The suspect’s whereabouts are unknown and it is suspected that he has since fled to Gauteng after the incident. He is still being actively sought by the police. The complainants were informed of developments with regards to the case by the investigating officer and they were also requested to contact the investigating officer should they hear anything about the suspect’s whereabouts. No one has informed police that the suspect is back and picking up his child from school. Now that you have informed us that the suspect is back, the investigating officer will follow up on your information.”
They claim not to know the whereabouts of the suspect, yet I managed to find him and he opens up to me about the incident for the first time since it happened.
For me the real problem lies with SAPS. They’ve had a year to finalise this case and in the general scheme of all the crime taking place in the country, this should have been fairly easy to get to court. Both the victim and suspect say they gave statements to the same detective and witnesses on both sides say they’ve also corroborated the stories.
Why has it taken this show to firstly get the police to start the investigation, and why have they dragged their heels for so long. The fact is: if the action was swift enough on simple cases like these, perhaps there won’t be such a huge backlog of open cases and complaints by the police that they are overwhelmed by the sheer volume of cases they are dealing with. It’s that simple.
I hope that this case is finally taken to court and the matter resolved. The families on both sides are looking for closure.
You can email Terence Pillay at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter:@terencepillay1
In May 2016 Andrew Guy, a father of a 13-year-old boy got a call from his son’s school asking him to come and fetch his child who had just been assaulted. Racing to the school, Andrew found that it wasn’t an altercation with another child at the school but a parent.
Andrew alleges that after a disagreement with a girl his son was grabbed by his neck by the girl’s father, who dragged him along the ground and punched him on his face several times.
Andrew took his son to the doctor for treatment and then laid a charge of assault at the Malvern Police Station.
At the time the police said the matter was being prioritised because it involved a minor, but despite it being a year later, no real progress has been made on this case. In fact, in a written statement last week, Captain Nqobile Gwala from SAPS Communications had this to say:
“A case of assault common is still being investigated by Malvern SAPS. The suspect’s whereabouts are unknown and it is suspected that he has since fled to Gauteng after the incident. He is still being actively sought by the police. The complainants were informed of developments with regards to the case by the investigating officer and they were also requested to contact the investigating officer should they hear anything about the suspect’s whereabouts. No one has informed police that the suspect is back and picking up his child from school. Now that you have informed us that the suspect is back, the investigating officer will follow up on your information.”
They claim not to know the whereabouts of the suspect, yet I managed to find him and he opens up to me about the incident for the first time since it happened.
For me the real problem lies with SAPS. They’ve had a year to finalise this case and in the general scheme of all the crime taking place in the country, this should have been fairly easy to get to court. Both the victim and suspect say they gave statements to the same detective and witnesses on both sides say they’ve also corroborated the stories.
Why has it taken this show to firstly get the police to start the investigation, and why have they dragged their heels for so long. The fact is: if the action was swift enough on simple cases like these, perhaps there won’t be such a huge backlog of open cases and complaints by the police that they are overwhelmed by the sheer volume of cases they are dealing with. It’s that simple.
I hope that this case is finally taken to court and the matter resolved. The families on both sides are looking for closure.
You can email Terence Pillay at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter:@terencepillay1