A ten-year-old boy on Tuesday testified against his HIV-positive father in the Pretoria High Court after the latter allegedly sodomised him a year ago.
The 29-year-old Mamelodi father pleaded not guilty to a charge of rape and one of attempting to murder his son, who was nine at the time.
The man said he could not understand the charges against him. The court explained to him that in terms of the law a person who knew he was HIV-positive at the time of raping someone, could face a charge of attempting to murder the victim.
The frail looking boy testified against his father through an intermediary and on closed circuit television. The State said it would be too traumatic for the boy to face his father in open court.
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The court heard that the father, who was estranged from the child's mother, fetched his son for an overnight visit on February 5, 2007.
He had gone drinking and had taken the child with him. The State claimed that later in the evening he had told the boy he wanted to have sex with him.
He allegedly made several attempts to do this, but friends stopped him. The indictment states that he eventually managed to sodomise the child, while he knew he was HIV-infected.
The child's mother testified that a family member brought her son home the next morning. She said she had wanted to bath him because he had to go to school, but he could not sit down.
He then told her he had been sodomised by his father and she took him to the local clinic.
An uncle testified that he had heard the child screaming that night. When he had gone to investigate the accused's friends had told him that the child claimed he was raped by his father.
The uncle said he had known the accused was HIV-positive prior to the incident and had even seen his medication.
(Proceeding)
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This article was originally published on page 3 of Pretoria News on February 13, 2008
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