It will still be a while before the community knows the fate of the parents to a toddler who plunged to his death in December.
An inquest docket was opened after the fact and handed to the Roodepoort Magistrate’s Court for a decision on whether the parents should be prosecuted, but a senior prosecutor sent it back. The prosecutor felt the docket lacked evidence, according to Honeydew Cluster spokesperson Karen Jacobs.
Previously, the Record reported the docket apparently went missing between the court and the station, after Roodepoort police spokesperson Warrant Officer Nonhlanhla Khumalo denied the docket being returned to them. The three-year-old boy died on 19 December, after his mother had allegedly locked him up in their home to go Christmas shopping. He had plunged from the balcony of the family’s third-floor apartment in Wilro Park.
Jacobs confirmed the investigating officer personally presented the docket to the prosecutor, who found the docket incomplete.
“Only once the investigation is complete will the case again be referred to court for a decision to be made on prosecution,” she told the Record.
Jacobs added inquest cases tend to take longer than other cases to investigate, resolve and prosecute.
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