Rape complainant cries for justice

It’s exactly one year to the date when a 19-year-old woman reported she was brutally raped after being kidnapped by her attackers who are police officers, and she is now lamenting police inaction.
Yesterday, OBSERVER media spoke with the woman, who cannot be named as stipulated in the Sexual Offences Act otherwise the media entity can be punished.
“From the day the report was made until now, I have been making weekly checks with the investigator at CID [Criminal Investigations Department] concerning the status of the report. To this date, the investigator is still telling me ‘I am working on the case, there is no statute of limitation,” she said.
The young woman said she is still “shaken up” and is constantly reminded when family members and close friends keep asking from time to time, “what has become of the matter.”
“I am frustrated and tired of telling them that the police [are] working on the matter as was told to me by the Inspector,” she said, while adding that she is “mentally drained and frustrated” because she is already a victim and feels further victimised by the fact that her attackers are policemen and nothing is happening.
She said it appears as though lawmen are dragging their feet because of who committed the crimes against her.
One example of the slow pace of the probe was that she had submitted her phone for evidence to be extracted from it in May last year, and it took the police seven months to do so.
She said she kept asking about the device and was repeatedly told, “the Cyber Lab is working on getting the information extracted from your phone,” and it wasn’t until December 22, 2017 that the investigator returned it to her.
(More in today’s Daily Observer)