Pretoria - An Eersterust resident who was attacked with a broken bottle in February has called on the police to locate her missing J88 form and avoid delaying her court case against her attacker.
The J88 is a legal document completed by a medical doctor or registered nurse, documenting injuries sustained by the victim in any circumstance where a legal investigation is to follow.
It may be the only objective information available in a legal case.
Priscilla Leyds, 42, claimed she was brutally attacked by a man when she allegedly tried to ask him not to touch her friend inappropriately.
Leyds said the incident took place on February 5 after she and a friend had attended a baby shower on Bronberg Avenue in Eersterust.
She said the owner of the tavern near them asked them to move out of the street and come to his establishment, which they did.
She alleged that after a while a man who had been at the tavern with his friends started to touch and grope a friend of theirs.
“We tried to tell him to stop, but he wouldn’t listen and kept pushing us back. I don’t know how or when, but at some point he had grabbed a bottle and started attacking me.
“Other customers rushed in to assist me and eventually started assaulting him as I tried to stop the bleeding, until I was eventually rushed to Mamelodi Day Hospital.”
On being released from the hospital, Leyds said she opened a case with the Eersterust police, who allegedly told her not to worry about the J88 form, but to just open the case.
She said she had since then been repeatedly to the police station, begging for her J88, as it was needed in her court case.
Leyds said that what seemed “off” was that a week after she had reported her case, her attacker also filed a case of assault against her, and she had already appeared in court for that matter, while hers had been provisionally withdrawn.
She said that instead, the police told her to go to the hospital and take pictures of her file.
“I did not lay a hand on him, he was assaulted by members of the community after he had attacked me, and yet his J88 appeared in order, unlike mine.
“I feel let down by the police as they arrested me as if I was the criminal, with my investigating officer just watching, and my matter is not making any progress.”
The SAPS in Eersterust said it had “noted with concern” a post circulating on social media about a woman who was allegedly assaulted, and the police had failed to give her a J88.
Spokesperson Sergent Sam Shibambo said it should be noted that a J88 was a medical document that could only be obtained from a medical practitioner or at a hospital. He said in this case, the police could not get the victim’s copy of the J88, hence the investigating officer “made means” to get a medical report to present in court.
Pretoria News