Charlene Smith talks to a teen rape victim who is battling to rebuild her life
Alexandra smiles and clasps her fine-boned hands tightly. “This week is a very bad one, things are building up, I argued with my principal, I feel as though I’m not matching up, my hockey is not my best, I’m getting angry easily …”
She smiles sadly. “I’m very jealous of you, your rapist got refused bail – the one who raped me will probably walk free.”
Alexandra is the pseudonym she chooses, it is refined and elegant, befitting her. The headgirl of her school, Alexandra at 17 is every parent’s dream child, she gets high grades, was a champion dancer and is beautiful in a classical, fine-featured way. Two years ago, she told the court, she was brutally attacked in a bizarre rape by 27- year-old Lynton Halstead, an ex-Hilton collegiate. His stepfather is a leading figure in the legal community and his mother a socialite – Halstead has had every opportunity in life.
Alexandra’s family by contrast are rich only in the love they share.
Magistrate TJ Ikaneng acquitted Halstead on the rape charge, saying although he had sex with the girl, it had not been rape. Halstead was found guilty of having sex with a minor.
Although she had impressed the court as a good witness, the magistrate said she had contradicted herself several times. This week Alexandra stood by her story.
Two years ago, 15-year-old Alexandra, a virgin – as the district surgeon’s report confirmed – went to church and was waiting for a family member to fetch her in Rosebank when a voice behind her told her to get into a car and not try anything funny because he had a gun.
According to her testimony in court, she obeyed. In the car she realised he did not have a gun, but as she reached for the car door he pulled out a large knife. He took her to his parent’s mansion, no one was at home, he pushed her up the stairs and into his room where he locked the door.
She grabbed his knife and tried to stab him; he hit her with a golf stick. “He said I must bathe because I’d wet my underwear with fear. He ran a bath, took off my clothes, made me get in, then stripped and got in with me. I think the court had a problem with that. A counsellor later explained to me the psychology of victim nakedness, but clearly no one had told the court.”
Alexandra speaks clearly and with maturity. She often smiles and is polite in her manner. “I was naked for a long time, about two to three hours.” According to her testimony, he paced across the room and said, “This is rape, you have to relax.”
A pornographic video was playing on his TV. He tried to force her to inhale what she would later learn was crack cocaine. She refused. “He got angry and ripped away the towel I had around me, that was the worst.” She bites her lip and shakes her head.
“He told me to blow him, then jerked off, and then wanted 69.” She speaks in the flat monotone of dissociation every rape survivor uses while reciting what happened. She heard voices and told the court that he said they were of people who would rape her too, if she made a sound. He raped her again, rolled her on to her stomach and raped her yet again, all the time keeping a cloth over her face, “He came all over my stomach. It was repulsive. It was almost as if there were things crawling on me.”
She washed herself. He patted the bed next to him and said: “What should I do with you?” Alexandra looks past the fields of her school: “I said, `You can always kill me or drop me at an SOS on the road.’ He said, `I don’t want someone else to do to you what I have done to you.’ It was almost as though he was trying to be a gentleman.”
He let her partially dress, dragged her downstairs, tied her to a dining room chair and blindfolded her. Halstead finally took her, left her at a petrol station and gave her a coin to phone her family. He had already demanded her home address and warned her if she told anyone he would come and kill her.
She called home; family members were already driving the streets looking for her. They came quickly, and drove around for two hours looking for the house of her rapist, which they finally found.
Child protection unit officers were called. The first officer she dealt with “was a big fat guy whose third language was English, he just said, `What happened?’ and I was supposed to know how to answer him. He also asked me this in front of my family, I did not want them to hear. They only heard everything that happened at court.”
The second time she was interviewed was by a female police officer, “who was tapping her fingertips on the table, yawning and sighing”. The third police officer “couldn’t spell to save his life”. The docket went missing for a month or two. Evidence was lost.
And then she had to endure the case. The defence advocate, Mike Hannon, “accused me of bringing the bandages he tied me up with to court from home. I felt that he badgered me mercilessly and no one stopped him. We did so much to get to a trial, the least they could do is convict him.
Alexandra says she would read news reports and not recognise the case. “I wondered if some people did not believe me. Hannon would say ludicrous things. Once he said I had made a snide comment and he would ask the magistrate to find me in contempt of court.
“I felt couldn’t answer the way I wanted. I had to say yes or no. I was asked for example, `Did he rape you?’ – `Yes.’ `Did it feel good?’ – `No.’
“Every time I was asked to describe something that was intimate about the rape, Hannon would say: `I couldn’t hear that,’ and I would have to spell it out, P for Peter, E for egg … I lost my temper, but I was not able to cry in front of them. As I came out of court, someone asked me how I was, and I burst into tears.”
She sits back and reflects, “The effects of rape aren’t just with you for a week or two afterwards, flashbacks have only recently just stopped for me. I would be somewhere, even in a classroom, and that coke smell would seem to be there. People don’t understand the rape stays with you always and will never go.
“And the courts have an obsession with wounds. Wounds are not indicative of what happened. I was raped. I didn’t know him. I was not trying to get back at him like the lawyers said. I have to show wounds, but I stayed calm to survive. We who are raped have to prove all the time that we were raped, but he can just say he did nothing and will get off scot-free.”
She sits on her hands: “Outwardly, I think people see me as being reliable, very focused, disciplined and hopefully friendly, but inwardly I have lost my lust for life. I think it would be so easy to slit my wrists, I wouldn’t have to worry anymore, it would be so easy to do it.” Her smile falters.
“Now I find I want things to be perfect and get irritable if they are not. I battle to concentrate. I always came first in class, but now I battle to come fifth. I’d be quite happy to give up. I have bouts of happiness and of depression, but depression lasts longer.”
Last Friday, it was Alexandra’s matric dance. She wore a beautiful red dress and the sort of delicate shoes she prefers. She went with her cousin, because in the two years since the rape she fears relationships with boys.
Her friends find it difficult to relate to her mood swings and her rape. “In the position I’m in as head girl, I can’t have problems. I can’t tell anyone. I’m strong, I must be an example to everyone else. Sometimes friends do things that seem so immature and superficial. They are always happy and I am always depressed for no reason. Little things get me down. The other day I locked myself in my room and cried and cried for hours.
“He took away my innocence. I see life now from a negative, cynical angle. I always expect the worst. I get angry very quickly. Before I was very naive, I believed there was good in everyone if you just looked for it. And yet after the rape I became more confident about speaking out.
“I like people around me who are happy and grateful. I like little, good things. I’ve experienced the worst of people, I know their demon side. Now I try and surround myself with good people. I want to live in a good world.”