Adv. Rodney de Kock. My mom died in July 2017. Why no arrests?

Adv. Rodney de Kock, Director of Public Prosecutions, Cape Town 

Copy: National Director of Public Prosecutions Adv. Shaun Abrahams

Dear Mr De Kock

Refer to my letter of 19 March 2018.

My mom died at Groote Schuur Hospital on 7 July 2017 of "unnatural causes".  You have had the docket including post-mortem report and medical negligence opinion since January 2018.

Last year, after the South African police did nothing on the case for four months, I literally did their work for them and handed a sworn statement to you and expedited the collection of the post-mortem reports so they could deliver them to you. 

You have not even taken statements from any of the accused from the hospital and Western Cape Health Department - the names I gave you including a foreign doctor who might be a flight risk and/or already left the country.

But your office and police freely gave Premier Helen Zille's and Western Cape Government's legal representative confidential information about an ongoing criminal investigation that until then had not been given me. The information gave them insight into the case and defence they as respondents might need in possible future criminal proceedings. It also led to Mrs Zille cancelling the internal investigation into my mother's care and complaints about hospital and health department staffs she had promised.

This is the second criminal complaint against the Western Cape Health Department where I was the complainant – the first was the Christopher Hobbs case – that you and police put their interests above the victim’s.

Also, it now appears you may not be asking the right questions as suggested in my statement, emails, health legislation and guidelines and case law, and not au fait with medical law as you should be.  It appears you are reluctant or disinterested to proceed.

We are unhappy with your and the police’s lacklustre management of the case.  There’s no excuse or explanation for the delay in making a decision and not informing us of it.

Thomas Johnson

(With a nod to Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri.)