The Ministry of Justice and Correctional Services has asked the public protector to investigate why a Cape Town mother was not assisted to get a protection order.
Altecia Kortje and her seven-year-old daughter were murdered just a week after she allegedly tried to get the protection order against her boyfriend and the father of her two children.
Altecia and Raynecia went missing for a few days and relatives went to the house where Altecia’s boyfriend, Ryan Smith, lived.
“As we entered the room I could see just the hand out there,” said Wendy Van Der Poll, a relative.
“You could see there was no more life. My sister and I were looking for the daughter and then we found her she was in the bathroom next to a bin filled with water and the only thing we could gather from there is that she’d been drowned.
“Altecia, the mom, her face was covered in blood and it looked like she was brutally murdered.
Both the mom and daughter had several stab wounds. Van Der Poll says Altecia had left her boyfriend a week ago and had gone to their house to fetch their two children – Raynecia and their nine-month-old baby. The baby was not in the house at the time.
The Ministry of Justice and Correctional Services is looking into allegations that Altecia had gone to apply for a protection order against Ryan Smith, but was turned away. The matter is now in the hands of the Public Protector.
“She could have been alive today if they had assisted her in the first place. And how many of this is still going to happen?” Van Der Poll said.
She says she is against gender-based violence and the fact that a family member has been arrested for the murders, makes it very difficult to deal with.
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Source: eNCA
