Johannesburg – A fed-up survivor of gender-based violence (GBV) has laid a criminal complaint against two police officers she alleges closed her case without bothering to investigate it.
Emmah Mailula, represented by AfriForum’s Private Prosecution Unit, filed the complaint at the Mamelodi East Police Station today, Wednesday, 14 October 2026.
This was the same police station where she reported that she had been assaulted earlier this year on 11 April 2026.
Mailula reported to the police that she was assaulted at her residence in Mamelodi, sustaining serious facial injuries.
However, on 30 April, she received an SMS from the South African Police Service (SAPS) informing her that the Senior Public Prosecutor at the Mamelodi Magistrate’s Court had declined to prosecute and that her case docket had been closed.
Unhappy with the decision, Mailula said she visited the court and Mamelodi East Police Station to establish where the docket was.
Mailula said court officials gave her conflicting information.
On 5 May, a control prosecutor told her that the case should not have been closed and undertook to provide further feedback.
However, she said no further communication was received.
It was then that Mailula approached the unit.
“In light of the alleged failures within the criminal justice system that have been brought to the public’s attention, including matters considered by the Madlanga Commission, I lost confidence in the manner in which the SAPS was handling my matter,” she stated in her affidavit.
“I consequently gave the AfriForum Private Prosecutions Unit the mandate to act on my behalf and intervene in the matter.”
Spokesperson Barry Bateman said the unit wrote to the Senior Public Prosecutor at the Mamelodi Magistrate’s Court, who later confirmed that the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) had not declined to prosecute the matter.
Instead, the prosecutor had instructed the investigating officer on 22 April to conduct further investigations.
However, while the investigating officer was attending a three-month training course, another police officer requested that a Colonel close the docket.
The Colonel subsequently endorsed the docket as “withdrawn”, resulting in it being placed in storage at SAPS Mamelodi East.
Bateman said: “The SAPS had no authority to withdraw the matter, as this decision rests exclusively with the National Prosecuting Authority.
“The closure of the docket, despite the NPA’s instructions to investigate the matter further, could constitute defeating the ends of justice and fraud.
“AfriForum’s Private Prosecution Unit has successfully prosecuted three gender-based violence cases, including a rape, in which the police similarly showed no interest in investigating the complaints.
“Consider the thousands of other victims whom the police turn away, or whose cases they neglect to investigate, ultimately denying them justice and allowing perpetrators to escape accountability.”
Bateman said it was “precisely matters like these” that prompted President Cyril Ramaphosa to announce the grand audit and recovery plan, with deadlines and tasks for officials across the criminal justice system.
“However, these gender-based violence cases, at the frontline of the police’s engagement with the public, are so prevalent that they speak to the collapse of the criminal justice system,” said Bateman.
Outside the police station, after filing the complaint, Mailula said she felt failed by the criminal justice system.
“They disappointed me. They let me down because I opened a case, but it was standing still,” she said.
“No feedback, nothing. So I ended up coming to AfriForum to get the justice that I needed.”
Mailula added that, regrettably, she was not alone.
“I’m so ashamed of the South African police because they are not taking GBV seriously,” she said.
“Each and every day, there’s a woman who is dying because, most of the time, women come to the police station to open cases, but their cases just end up being closed.
“So, I’m disappointed and ashamed to say that if I have a problem in the near future, I don’t know if I will have the confidence to go to a police station and open a case because they are not ready to help us as women of South Africa.
“I’m very disappointed in them.”
The unit will continue engagements with the SAPS and the NPA to ensure both matters are properly investigated and prosecuted.
