Child torture, double jeopardy and cheque book justice

Feb 05, 2011 Letters

DEAR EDITOR,
The dismissal of the case against the police officers who were recently charged with torture should be a wake-up call for all of us who care about the apparent decline of the rule of law in this country.
This travesty is the culmination of the pernicious practice of ‘cheque book justice’ whereby persons who are accused of serious felonies have quietly compensated the victim and have been allowed to escape justice. We as a society need to ask ourselves why we have allowed this practice to take root in our criminal justice system, and how we can chart a new course in the administration of justice.
When a crime is committed it is not simply a matter of the perpetrator versus the victim, but rather the perpetrator versus the entire society, represented by the state. When our fellow citizens are subjected to vicious violence, or our children are sexually abused or assaulted, we are all diminished, and the entire society is traumatized and victimized. When a child is beaten and brutally tortured, it is not only a crime against the victim, but against society and all of humanity. We, as a civilized society, must demand justice which means that the perpetrator(s) be called to account under the law lest we all descend into the Hobbesian “state of nature,” where every man is his own protector and life is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.”
When representatives of the state who are supposed to protect us, are the alleged perpetrators of child rape and torture, we must leave no stone unturned in the quest for justice. It is our collective duty to demonstrate that we will not tolerate this apparent descent into depravity and barbarity. To inject spurious claims of double jeopardy in order to exclude the actions of the alleged perpetrators from departmental review, not only endangers public safety, but further deepens the existing crisis in police-community relations. The police are in possession of more than enough “evidence” to act departmentally against these officers. Swift and decisive action should have already been taken.
Under the English common law double jeopardy does not attach or begin until the first witness is sworn and therefore would not apply where the state has dismissed the charges without calling any witnesses.
As far as I am aware from reading newspaper reports (and I am subject to correction), this case was dismissed for want of prosecution. Even if we are so numb with disgust that we have lost our voices, the world is watching, and the officers who are allegedly responsible for perpetrating what is possibly the most horrendous act of child torture in modern times should not be allowed to go unpunished.
We need to demonstrate to perpetrators of these crimes that “blood money” will not save them.
Our prosecutors must be trained to build cases on circumstantial evidence which is often more reliable than direct evidence. In this torture case, for example, there is an abundance of circumstantial evidence and secondary evidence (including photographs), upon which a convincing case can still be constructed to support another attempt to bring the alleged perpetrators to justice.
In the case of the child of tender years who was brutally attacked, chased and raped allegedly by a police officer, surely there are records which will show who was on duty so that the officer could be made available for an identification parade, and to provide samples of bodily fluids for matching DNA analyses.
The insensitive and cruel female officer who further assaulted the child should also be appropriately disciplined and prosecuted.
We as a society must end the ceaseless talk about child protection and take effective action to safeguard our children and uphold the rule of law. We must demand an immediate end to the detention of children in police stations across the country. Children should not be exposed to brutality and terror because the state has no proper facilities for their temporary detention, but still insists on detaining them.
It is our duty to find ways to outlaw cheque book justice, beginning with an effective and efficient witness protection programme. We must strengthen and modernize our investigative and prosecutorial procedures to ensure that all those who prey upon the most vulnerable in our society will receive their just deserts.
Joan Ward-Mars

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