The bail application for a 47-year-old teacher accused of raping two young learners, aged 12 and 14 has been postponed to Friday for further verification of the suspect’s residential addresses.
According to SABC, the incident took place at a primary school in Leeudoringstad, near Wolmaranstad.
Parents were first alerted to the teacher’s alleged misconduct through conversations among the pupils. They recounted how one child’s elder sister overheard a discussion about the assaults and informed the parents.
The teacher was arrested after the mothers of the two victims and the school’s principal reported the alleged rapes to the authorities. According to the girls, the teacher would ask them to help carry books or fetch items from his office, where he then allegedly assaulted them as reported by IOL.
One mother, whose identity is withheld to protect her daughter, expressed her distress to the SABC, “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. [..] 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.”
Another mother shared how the conversation among the children revealed the disturbing events.
“The children were playing 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.”
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