A father who claims it was his daughter who made the first allegations of abuse at the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls says his child is back home and attending her old school.
"We have heard nothing from the school. We have been contacted by the police, but we have refused to give them a report until we have resolved the matter with the school," said the man, who asked not to be named.
The claims made by his daughter in September, he said, had not been taken seriously and had spiralled out of control after other complaints came to light.
Continues Below ↓
Talkshow queen Winfrey has visited the school twice in recent weeks - on one occasion to address a gathering of parents about the controversy.
The father said neither he nor his wife had been informed of the meeting. He blamed the school's suspended principal, Dr Mbulelo Mzimane, for handling the case badly.
As for Winfrey, he said: "What Oprah has done for our children is excellent, and we thank her. It is other people who have failed her. The bad influence there was the dorm parent and the principal."
The father declined to let his daughter be interviewed, and said she was back at her old school, where she would see out the year.
"It started in September when she called us on a Sunday. She was crying and told us she was unhappy about the treatment she was getting from the dorm parent," he said.
He met with Mzimane the next week, but said she supported the dorm parent and "didn't accept any wrongdoing, even though my child was crying in front of her".
That Friday, his child returned home with only her toiletries, having left her belongings behind in the belief that she was to return to school that Sunday.
Over the weekend, he said, the child had shared details of her mistreatment. He declined to elaborate, but recent media reports say the dorm parent allegedly grabbed a girl by the throat and threw her against a wall; swore and shouted at the girls; and sexually fondled at least one pupil.
On Sunday evening when the school transport failed to arrive, the father contacted Mzimane to find out what was happening and to share his child's claims.
"Dr Mzimane said Winfrey had been informed of everything and that if I wanted to bring my child back to the school, I needed to write a letter and fax her," he said.
"So we decided, 'No, let us not cause any havoc', and put the child in her previous school."
Gauteng police spokesperson Superintendent Lungelo Dlamini has confirmed that detectives were investigating the case and that charges had been laid.
- This article was originally published on page 10 of The Star on November 01, 2007
|
StumbleUpon
Reddit
Digg
Delicious
Newsvine
Facebook
muti
Twitter
