Heather Hogan
Johannesburg police officer Lourentius Alberts appeared in court this week on charges of indecently assaulting a neighbour’s 11-year-old daughter.
The girl’s mother said in her statement to the police: “I had some friends over for the afternoon and my daughter was playing outside. That evening I was standing washing dishes when she came up to me and hugged me tightly. She was very quiet, had a bath and went to bed.
“The next day my daughter went to school as usual. When I picked her up that afternoon, I asked her if she’d had a good day. She didn’t want to talk. That night while I was making our dinner she hugged me tightly again. [Later] we sat in my daughter’s room. I asked her what was wrong.”
The girl allegedly told her mother that Alberts had found her alone and sexually assaulted her.
“My daughter said Alberts told her he was working on a case where a little girl fell out of a window and landed with her legs open on a tree branch. He touched her between the legs to show her where. She felt very uncomfortable and drew away,” the mother claimed in her statement.
“He unzipped her top and told her she was very young to be wearing a bra. He told her that her bra fitted well and it was the right size.
“My daughter says Alberts told her that one day he would unzip his pants and put his ‘thing’ next to hers so that she would know what it felt like.
I told her I didn’t believe it and she started crying.”
Alberts’s bail application is continuing in the Johannesburg Magistrates Court. Alberts, of Jet Park, has not yet pleaded to the charges.
n Barry Streek reports that Police have arrested and charged suspects for nearly half of the 63 492 rapes reported in 1998 and the first half of this year, according to Minister of Safety and Security Steve Tshwete.
And one of five victims later withdrew charges against the suspects.
Tshwete was replying to a question from Nomareledwane Sigabi (Democratic Party), in Parliament. He said 42 646 rapes were reported to the police last year and 19 796 suspects arrested and charged. This means suspects were arrested in 46,3% of the cases.
He also said that in 8 767 cases, 20,6%, the victims later withdrew the charges.
In the first half of this year, 20 846 rapes were reported to the police and 9 890 suspects had been arrested and charged, that is 47,4%.
In 4 396 cases, 21,2%, the victims withdrew the charges.