An ex-police officer, accused of raping a medicated Hamburg schoolgirl instead of helping her, sighed deeply after being denied bail in the Peddie Magistrate’s court on Friday.
The ex-sergeant, 41, who resigned after his first court appearance on May 25, is accused of raping one schoolgirl and attempting to rape another while on duty and supposedly trying to assist the girls.
In court he was slightly below average height with a medium build, moustache and beard, and wore a stony expression.
When he realised the Daily Dispatch team was in court, he made concerted efforts to hide his face.
State prosecutor Khotso Seitlheko told the court the state had originally said it would not oppose bail, but this had since changed and the state was opposing bail, he said.
Asked why, Seitlheko said it lay with the severity of the allegations.
The accused became visibly frustrated as he contorted his face and stroked his facial hair.
Seitlheko said although the two charges on their own were schedule 5 offences, when combined they moved to schedule 6. The accused was an on-duty police officer at the time. The first victim sustained injuries when she tried to defend herself and the second victim wasn’t in her sober senses and had been medicated.
Defence attorney Yonela July argued that two schedule 5 offences did not make a schedule 6 offence.
Magistrate Kesentri Govender said before a bail application could be heard the schedule of the offence had to be determined.
Schedule 6 puts pressure on the accused to be forthcoming with information on the alleged crime, which can be useful to the state during the trial. Govender postponed proceedings to Thursday, when the schedule would be decided.
The accused walked out of the court with his head held low and let out a sigh as he was escorted back to the cells.
When the Daily Dispatch visited the village on Friday community leader Mzikayise Makubalo, the girls’ friend Sisanda Magodla, and Magodla’s stepmother Pumla Mapuma said the 21-year-old had been sick for a few days and had made several unsuccessful attempts to get to the hospital, 14km away.
They claimed the sergeant agreed to take the girls to the hospital in his double-cab bakkie but later tried to touch the the 17-year-old girl inappropriately, and then picked up the 21-year-old from hospital, and allegedly raped the medicated woman on the beach...