Tears as cop acquitted of jail cell rape

Shoddy police work criticised

PORT Elizabeth policeman Sergeant Terence Franks broke down and sobbed loudly when the Grahamstown High Court yesterday acquitted him of raping a woman in the Motherwell police cells in 2011.

In 2014, the Grahamstown High Court found that on a balance of probabilities, the then Motherwell police cell commander had raped the young 25-year-old woman vaginally and anally while she was in custody.

The court ordered the police ministry to pay R500 000 in damages.

While Judge Murray Lowe yesterday found the state had failed to prove beyond reasonable doubt in the criminal trial that Franks had raped the young woman in the cells in May 2011, he was sharply critical of the police investigation into her allegations.

Franks had maintained that he had put a trainee in charge of the police cells for the day, that this trainee had maintained control of the keys and that he had neither the opportunity nor the means to access the cell to rape the woman.

The trainee policewoman had largely confirmed his version.

But, Lowe yesterday said that the evidence had exposed a sorry tale of incompetent and incomplete investigation.

For 12 days after the young woman had revealed to police that she had been raped by a short, fat, coloured policeman – later identified as Franks – no one had bothered to examine CCTV footage of the passage leading to the cells.

Lowe said the failure to examine this footage was, at best, a gross oversight. Despite the disquiet and concern expressed at the failure to do so, it now seemed that the CCTV footage no longer existed or was simply not available.

“That no one looked at it is simply extraordinary.”

Franks, who has remained a serving policeman, had his eyes tightly closed at times while Lowe read the judgment.

Wearing a black suit, black shirt and black and white tie, he opened his eyes wide at the verdict and then collapsed in a heap sobbing loudly into his hands.

The 2014 finding that on a balance of probabilities he had raped the young woman was never appealed by the police ministry, which coughed up the damages.

At the time, Judge Jeremy Pickering said the young woman had been described as cheerful and uninjured when placed in her cell.

Hours later she had complained of being raped and a medical examination had confirmed this.

Lowe yesterday agreed medical evidence had determined she had been raped, at least anally, within 24 hours of being examined.

He said there could be only two scenarios: one that she was raped in the cells as she had alleged or that she had been raped in the 12 hours before being arrested.

The woman had testified that Franks had come to the cell alone, had threatened her with a firearm and ordered her to undress.

He had then undressed and raped her vaginally and anally

Lowe said Franks would have had to have access to the cell and have had sufficient time to rape her in the manner she suggested.

The trainee officer to whom Franks said he had delegated the job of being cell commander for the day had testified that Franks had been with her almost all the time and had not had the opportunity to rape the woman.

He had also not had the keys to the cell.

Lowe said he would have had to find she was deliberately lying to cover up the rape or that she had deliberately conspired with Franks to do so.

He said while there had been discrepancies between her evidence and that of Franks there had also been problems with the occurrence book recordings, which did not support a deliberate cover-up.

He said the evidence suggested she must have been raped before being imprisoned. — TMG