Case of teacher accused of raping two minors postponed

Reading Time: 3 minutes

A case against the 47-year-old teacher who allegedly raped 12 and 14-year-old minors at a primary school in Leeudoringstad, near Wolmaranstad, has been postponed to Friday for possible bail application.

The prosecution asked for the postponement to allow the verification of the suspect’s residential addresses. The teacher was arrested last Thursday after the mothers of the two minors and the principal of the school went to open cases of rape.

This comes after the two girls informed them that the teacher would allegedly ask them to help him carry books or fetch something from his office, where he would allegedly then perform the sexual acts.

Parents say they were alerted to this criminal act by a conversation with pupils. They say they got to learn that there was a teacher at school, who has been raping pupils.

Here are the views of the mothers, whose identity has been withheld, to protect the minors.

“As parents, we thought that children are safe at schools. children are not safe at schools, because the incident that happened to the 14-year-old victim happened during school hours. At school, no one noticed that there was a movement that a child would take a book to the teacher’s office, and then no one noticed the time the child spent in the teacher’s office. I think that justice should be done so that other children who might be facing the same assault and are afraid can come out.”

“The children were playing and on that day a similar incident had happened to one of the children. then other kids asked my daughter why she was not telling her parents what happened to her. At that time one elder sister was listening to them. That sister took those kids together with mine and came to us and told us about the conversation that she overheard the children talking about what transpired at school.”

The court postponed the case to Friday for possible bail application.

Opposition to bail

Meanwhile, outside the court, political parties and community members chanted and called on the court to deny the accused bail.

Below are the views of Nonky Lehihi of the EFF, Mampe Ntsitsi of the ANC, and Mantwa Kopung of the African Congress for Transformation.

EFF NCOP Member says, “This has really affected us because we think the children should be taken care of at schools, as teachers are also their parents so we now question the safety of schools. This teacher must not get bail.”

“The culprit was wrong, he was not supposed to do that to the minors. It was very wrong of him. That is why when the EFF went there we went and support the EFF at the school because we felt that this matter is not about political parties, it’s about all of us because we all have children in that school,” laments ANC’s Mampe Ntsitsi.

Mantwa Kopung of the African Congress for Transformation says, “The law must be enforced for this kind of case and again, the Department of Education should act fast on this case. They should not drag their feet because this is very sensitive. We send kids to the schools but in return, our kids are being abused.”

The Department of Education in the province has also condemned the alleged sexual abuse, emphasizing that teachers are expected to safeguard the well-being of learners.