Portfolio committee unhappy with progress on slain Jayden Lee case

Gauteng police say they are following several leads in the ongoing investigation into the death of an 11-year-old boy who went missing at a complex he lived in on May 14, only for his naked body to be discovered on the stairs the following day.

Jayden Lee Meek safely left school on May 14 but never made it home.

His body, which had head injuries, was discovered the next morning. 

Providing an update to parliament on Wednesday, deputy national police commissioner Lt-Gen Shadrack Sibiya said investigators had collected exhibits from the scene and were awaiting forensic results. 

Sibiya was addressing the portfolio committee on women, youth and persons with disabilities.

“Several leads were found at the scene and are currently being followed. Exhibits were taken for forensic analysis. We are still waiting for the postmortem, crime scene photographs, and full forensic report,” said Sibiya. 

Maj-Gen Thokozani Mathonsi, also addressing the committee, said the SAPS was scaling up its children protection programme and improving internal capacity. 

“A total of 19,263 SAPS members have received GBV-related reactive training – far surpassing the target of 11,983. And the current detection rate for crimes against children under 18 stands at 63.32% – above our national target of 61.99%,” he said. 

Mathonsi said that 24 child protection committees have been established since 2021 and that “100% of police stations now meet the national criteria for victim-friendly services”.

However, committee members were not convinced by the numbers.

DA MP Lisa-Maré Schickerling described the SAPS presentation as “pie-in-the-sky dreams”. 

“We have so many action plans, but there is no action. The trust in the police is probably at its lowest it's ever been in our country. We’re not asking SAPS to go above and beyond – just to do their jobs,” she said. 

Shickling cited a case involving a 17-year-old girl who had allegedly been sexually assaulted since the age of 10, with no arrest made due to the perpetrator’s standing in the community. 

 “That is grossly unfair to victims,” said Shickerling. 

Another member, Dianne Barnard, said the police need a shake-up and that statistical presentations don’t cut it anymore. 

“No one who commits GBV is listening to our parliamentary speeches. No criminal is interested in crime statistics. What we need is a total shake-up – looking at international best practice, taking a whole-of-society approach. What are you doing today that is different from what you’ve done by rote for the past two decades? Because it’s not working,” she said. 

Barnard said the programmes and revised plans were not bearing fruit. 

“Quarterly steering committee meetings aren’t bearing fruit, nor is your revised action plan. Why did the ministry of police omit disaggregated GBV data in the latest crime stats? That data has always been included before.

"It’s good that complaints are now being processed faster, and it seems the days of SAPS members telling women to just go back to their abusive husbands are over – I hope,” she said. 

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