Durban - A Pietermaritzburg school counsellor has been arrested on charges of allegedly molesting a 6-year-old boy he was supposed to be providing therapy to.
Provincial police spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Shooz Magudulela said the 30-year-old man, who cannot be identified until he pleads to charges, would appear in the Pietermaritzburg Magistrate’s Court on Monday.
The father of the child, who cannot be named to protect his son’s identity, was shattered when he spoke on Sunday.
“I can’t find the words to describe how it feels,” he said, “I don’t know how you even deal with this.”
The little boy was receiving help, he said.
But the family had been “ripped apart”.
“You send your child to school thinking he will be safe,” he said.
The boy had been attending therapy sessions with the counsellor since last March, after the school reported that he was having trouble concentrating.
He said he and his wife did not have any objection to that as the family had been going through a rough time because of illness.
But something seemed amiss, he said, when just over a month ago, the counsellor advised him and his wife that their son needed to continue with sessions because he “wasn’t achieving his full potential”.
This was despite the fact that he was playing rugby and soccer and, according to his teacher, excelling academically.
The parents questioned their son who eventually revealed that the “therapy sessions” he had been attending “did not involve any actual school work”.
Instead, the little boy reported that he and the counsellor played various “games” - involving touching and tickling and called “Monster Tap” and “Dog Rescue” - during the sessions.
He reported inappropriate touching and acts during those sessions.
The parents met the school, which initiated its own investigation, the boy’s father said. The parents opened a criminal case, which led to the man’s arrest on Friday morning.
The boy’s parents were worried other children might have had similar experiences and hoped that they would come forward.
“We don’t want this guy to even look at another kid again,” the father said. “And if there are any other children, their parents must do something about it so that they can get help.”
The Mercury