MPHAKATHI ASSIST POLICE TO ARREST ALLEGED ABUSER

THE Ekurhuleni District’s Family Violence, Child Protection and Sexual Offences Unit (FCS) have arrested a 35 year old man from Tswelopele for allegedly sexually abusing his 10-year-old daughter.

The suspect is currently in the Ivory Park police cells pending his appearance in the Tembisa Magistrate’s Court today for sexually abusing his daughter. The man has, for a while, being suspected by his neighbours for being up to something the nature of which they couldn’t pinpoint, after they observed that he never allowed his daughter to play with other children. Over and above this odd behaviour, the 10-year-old was often heard screaming in the rented room.

The neighbours finally managed to find something concrete on Saturday after the suspect’s landlord asked for his phone to play some music, only to end up in the phone’s gallery area where the girl’s sexually explicit pictures, strongly suspected to have been taken by the father, were seen.

All of the 40 or so pictures depicted the young and innocent girl in sexually explicit poses. Preliminary evidence shows that the pictures were taken on different occasions. The suspect appears with the victim in some of the photographs. The victim spent most of the time with her mother in Katlehong, and was being frequently collected from there by her father during the weekends and school holidays.

Brigadier Ngcobo has expressed horror at the incident, and has thanked the community for their observance and taking the right decision by exposing this reprehensible act. “Had it not been for the landlord and his neighbours, this man could have continued to abuse this innocent child for however long he wished,” said Brigadier Ngcobo.

He added that the community did an excellent job and that the Ivory Park police, and police elsewhere, need this level of cooperation and vigilance by the community and other stakeholders in the fight against child abuse and other forms of crimes.