Man suspected of raping a disabled child is at large after police bungle arrest

Police failed her disabled daughter, says an Eastern Cape mother.

• An Eastern Cape mother says police failed her disabled 15-year-old after the child was raped.
• She says she found the man with his trousers down and the teenager on a bed in a neighbour’s flat.
• Police took him into custody but failed to get him charged in court within 48 hours and he was released.
• Eastern Cape police say he will be charged in court when a psychological assessment of the child has been completed.

A man suspected of raping a disabled 15-year-old is walking free in the streets of a small Eastern Cape town after police bungled his arrest.

Mathabo (not her real name), from Khowa (Elliot) in the Eastern Cape, said on 14 July she called police after she found a man raping her disabled daughter.

The man was arrested on the same day and put in police holding cells. But according to an officer in Khowa police station, the investigating officer was only informed on 17 July. He rushed the man to Khowa Magistrate court but the matter was not on the court roll and police had to release the suspect because the law does not allow police to hold a suspect for more than 48 hours without being charged in court.

Eastern Cape police spokesperson Namhla Mdleleni said the case would continue. Mdleleni said the teenager had been referred to a psychologist and when she had been assessed, the matter would go to court.

But Mathabo said her daughter had not yet seen a psychologist, and in the meantime the man, who lives in the same street as Mathabo and her family, was walking free in the small town. She said police had not even told her that he had been released: she had heard it from his brother. The investigating officer had only visited them after the suspect had already been released, she said.

“My child is now living in fear and the sad part is that she sees this man almost every day because he always passes by my house. When she sees him, she rushes back to the house. I think she now understands that what this man did to her was very bad,” she said.

Mathabo said on the afternoon of Sunday 14 July, her daughter had gone to play with the neighbour’s children, in the flat next to theirs, as she often did. She said since her daughter had trouble using the toilet alone, she normally went to check on her after a while, or asked her 12-year-old son, to check on his sister. The shared toilets are outside the flats.

“On the day of the incident I asked her brother to fetch her but he came back saying she was not at our neighbour’s house,” Mathabo said.

“I thought maybe she’s in the toilet but she normally calls us when she is at the toilet. My son left to look for her at the toilet. Within a few minutes I heard him screaming, calling me. I rushed outside. He was at another neighbour’s flat. When I got there, that man was busy trying to put on his pants. My daughter was lying on a bed, naked,” said Mathabo, crying.

“Other neighbours heard my son screaming and they also rushed. When I saw what was happening I cried out loud. More people came,” she said.

The suspect was locked inside the flats and police were called.

“This person who did this is a community leader. He knows me and my daughter,” said Mathabo.

She said when she got to the police station to open a case, an officer mentioned that the suspect had been arrested before for a similar offence.

“But they decided to release him. He didn’t even appear in court. They just kept him for a few days and let him go, just like that,” she said.

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