By Luvuyo Mjekula
An 80-year-old Makhanda businessman appeared in the local magistrate’s court earlier today facing several charges of rape involving seven Hoogenoeg girls aged between 9 and 12.
He was arrested on Tuesday, along with his younger co-accused, who faces 10 counts of rape involving the same children. The two made their first court appearance today.
The girls’ parents, accompanied by residents of Hoogenoeg, the local area committee and the community policing forum (CPF), were also in court, to oppose bail against the two men.
The mother of one of the girls told Grocott’s Mail she was supposed to celebrate her 11th birthday today (Thursday) but she is traumatized. She said her daughter did not want to go to school. The mother wanted the elderly man, in particular, to be denied bail.
Another relative of one of the girls also spoke to Grocott’s Mail outside court.
She said on Sunday this week, her 10-year-old granddaughter informed her that she and her friends were sexually assaulted by the elderly man and his co-accused, who also appeared in court today.
The grandmother cannot be named to protect the identity of the minor child. She said the girl told her the elderly man inserted his finger in her and her friends’ private parts.
The grandmother said she immediately alerted the local community and the matter was reported to the police.
When the police arrived on the Sunday evening, all the children gave their statements and were later taken to the police station, in the company of their parents and community leaders. The police later drove them to Settlers Hospital for examination.
A day later, the families and community leaders called a community meeting and shared the shocking news of the rapes. But it was at another meeting on Tuesday that the residents decided to take matters into their own hands.
A group of residents reportedly pounced on the younger accused at his Sun City residence, picked him up and kept him in custody and called the police. They handed him over to the authorities and all of them then headed to the Somerset Heights home of the elderly man who was also arrested.
In court today, the frail elderly businessman’s attorney, Mike McCallum, argued to get magistrate Xoliswa Msesiwe to agree to a speedy bail application for his client.
“[My client] is 80 years old and he has a prosthetic limb – he is very sick,” said McCallum, asking the magistrate to use her discretion and consider releasing his client.
He said his client was being “denied his constitutional right to apply for bail now”.
However, after taking into account the readiness of the state to prepare for a bail application, Msesiwe ruled that it would be in the interests of justice to postpone the case until 25 April for a formal bail application.
The two men were remanded in custody.
The incident sent shockwaves through the Hoogenoeg community. “I am still shocked and in pain. All of us are in shock,” said Thenjiswa “Princess” van Rensburg.
Van Rensburg said even though she was not related to any of the child victims, “as a mother I am in pain. I could not sleep that night (Sunday). I am raising a grandchild and it could be my grandchild next.”
Responding to the attorney’s argument regarding his client’s poor health condition, she said: “What about the futures of the children. He is generations older than those children.”
Rosemary Langley of the CPF’s Sector 2 in the Hoogenoeg and Sun City areas, said the CPF wanted justice for the children and their parents.
