A former police officer sentenced to 15 years for stealing a gun with which he tried to shoot himself tells Maya Fisher-French how alternative sentencing gave him a second chance at life
After an all-night drinking spree officer Raymond van Vuuren (named changed) sat trembling in his car at 3am gripping the gun he had stolen a year earlier. He was trying to get up the nerve to blow his brains out.
His promotion had been refused and his ex-wife was suing for custody of his eldest daughter. His youngest daughter was already living overseas with her mother. Van Vuuren just wanted it all to end, to drive the demons from his head once and for all. Then he called his mother to say goodbye — and told her where he was. Ten minutes later his mother arrived. When Van Vuuren saw his daughter standing next to her sobbing, he handed the gun to his mother, who gave it to the police officer she had called to the scene. At that moment Van Vuuren’s life changed forever. He was arrested and charged with the theft and possession of an illegal firearm and was sentenced to 15 years’ imprisonment.
Yet one year later Van Vuuren is sitting in a coffee shop in Johannesburg’s northern suburbs telling me his story. Thanks to Nicro Van Vuuren stayed out of jail and is getting the counselling he so desperately needs. It was a lucky coincidence that saw Nicro introduce its non-custodial sentencing programme to the Pretoria Magistrate’s Court six months before Van Vuuren appeared for sentencing.
Despite changing his name, there is no doubt that people who know Van Vuuren will recognise him from this story, and I ask him why he is prepared to go public with it. “I am doing it for my colleagues. I hope this story will open the eyes of the police management and that it will help other police who need help. That is my biggest wish.”
Van Vuuren’s story started 22 years ago when he joined join the South African Police Service. “I wanted to be the greatest policeman ever,” he says. But the reality of South Africa’s politics soon got in the way when he was assigned to the townships around Pietermaritzburg between 1986 and 1996. This was South Africa’s unspoken civil war. The police were widely hated and despised. There were daily scenes of extreme violence which police officers either instigated or were exposed to. There was no trauma counselling.
If no one really cared back then, says Van Vuuren, no one in police management cares now. Trauma? You don’t talk about it, you drink the demons away.
Van Vuuren first tried to commit suicide in 1999 by swallowing a bottle of pills. His doctor booked him into Denmark Clinic in Pretoria. He returned to the police force with no questions asked and no checks as to whether he was fit for duty. “The officers would invite me to go have a drink with them, on duty. That is how they dealt with it.”
Still on active duty and wielding a firearm, Van Vuuren continued to fight depression. In 2001 when his wife left him he attempted to commit suicide with his service pistol — but he just couldn’t pull the trigger. “I kept thinking about my daughters and I just couldn’t do it to them.”
Once again, his doctor booked him into the Denmark Clinic. His station officer never enquired about his mental state and this time he was required to take unpaid leave for his 21-day recovery.
His doctor motivated for a medical board, which would have seen him take early retirement for his chronic depression and ongoing back pain, but it was denied.
When he returned to work Van Vuuren was concerned enough about the safety of his family to hand over his service weapon and ask for an office job.
Then, two years ago, he was asked by the logistics division to help count some guns. “I told them about my condition, but they told me not to worry.”
While counting the guns Van Vuuren took one. It was not missed and everyone ignored the fact that for the following year Van Vuuren arrived each day at work with a gun he was not supposed to have. It was only when he tried to use it to commit suicide that he was arrested and charged. Theft and illegal possession of a firearm carries a mandatory minimum sentence and Van Vuuren faced 15 years in jail.
But his attorney had heard about the Nicro programme and the magistrate, also familiar with its work, agreed to have him assessed for alternative sentencing.
He received a suspended sentence, a R3 000 fine and 590 hours of community service. He also had to join the Nicro programme, which includes an adult life-skills workshop once a week. He also had to kick the bottle. Van Vuuren’s progress will be monitored for the next two years. If he falls off the wagon or stops attending the course, his suspended sentence will kick in and he will face jail time.
Today Van Vuuren works as a driver, taking home almost as much pay as he received after 22 years of active police service.
I ask whether he feels anxious about starting his group therapy — surrounded by people who were arrested by police and who may be hostile towards him. He is concerned, not about their hostility, but that he has let them down. “I am embarrassed that I have to admit that as a policeman I committed a crime. I should hold myself to a higher standard. I let my community down.”
The job that kills
According to official statistics 506 police officers committed suicide between January 2000 and September 2005. According to research by the Medical Council, South Africa has one of the highest rates of family murder in the world.
Police officers make up a disproportionate number, with 60% of such murders committed by men working either in the police force, the security industry or defence force. In a high-profile case last year, Marius van der Westhuizen, a former policeman, murdered his children. His working conditions have been considered to be mitigating circumstances.