Durban - Hours after an elderly woman was raped, beaten and her two fingers broken, she was forced to face her alleged attacker, who denied attacking or abusing her, and calmly told her: “I would not do this to you, ma.”
The emotional and fragile woman, who lives on a smallholding in Oaklands, Verulam, and turns 70 on Thursday, responded, “But I asked you to stop.”
The woman, who cannot be named, looked her alleged rapist, whom she had known, in the eye while identifying him shortly after his arrest last Wednesday, but he continued to plead his innocence.
Instead of receiving immediate trauma counselling, she spent close to two hours at the Ndwedwe police station, while officers, the family claimed, treated the suspect like the victim. They said it was reprehensible that she was not shielded from her alleged rapist and had to wait 45 minutes while his statement was taken before hers.
The mother of four, who is now having sleepless nights, also had to contend with thoughts on whether her husband, 69, who had been stabbed several times with a spear, would survive.
He was also assaulted with a steel pipe and whipped. He was discharged from hospital on Monday.
If the couple’s trauma was not enough, a neighbour alerted the family earlier on Monday that their house had been broken into. While nothing was taken, they believe this could have been a revenge attack somehow connected with the initial incident.
The couple’s daughter-in-law told POST she was angry and hurt by the callousness of the 2am attack on two defenceless people, during a power outage.
She said the attacker had demanded money from her mother-in-law and, unhappy with the two R10 notes he was given, returned for more. When she told him she had not collected her monthly old-age grant, he went on a rampage.
Recounting the incident, she said: “My in-laws sleep in separate bedrooms and at around 2am last Wednesday, my mother-in-law heard knocking at her bedroom window. The person wanted money. She did not recognise the man’s voice but my father-in-law, whom she had called, knew who it was because the man used to go to their home.”
She said they told the man they had no money but he then ran to the back door, which was locked . He broke open the door and the husband was stabbed several times with the spear while trying in vain to keep him out. The man then demanded money and the woman went to her bedroom to retrieve what she could find.
The man left, only to return, wanting more money, the daughter-in-law said. “She told him she had not picked up her pension and that is when he got violent. They tried to retaliate but he beat up my father-in-law and stabbed him several times until his body went limp.
“He then dragged my mother-in-law out the house she has been living in for 48 years. She tried to push him away but fell, and that is when it (the rape) happened.”
She said her mother-in-law, who sustained a laceration to her arm, was beaten. Two of her fingers were broken while she tried desperately to defend herself from her attacker. She eventually managed to flee to their neighbour’s property for help.
The attacker was arrested later that day in oThongathi (Tongaat).
The daughter-in-law said that after giving her statement, her mother-in-law wanted to return home and even contemplated staying there. “But we insisted she couldn’t as she could be attacked, and on Monday someone broke into the house.”
She said her mother-in-law, who was badly bruised, was not coping well.
“You can see she has been traumatised. She doesn’t sleep properly and when she does fall off, she talks in her sleep, something she never did. It’s a heartbreaking sight. We went to the rape crisis centre and we got a counsellor to speak to her.”
She said the family now planned to send the couple for joint counselling.
To add to her trauma, it is alleged that when she sought help from the police, she was laughed at and treated with indifference.
Her father-in-law, who will turn 70 next month, was raised on the farm, she said.
The couple, who have four children and seven grandchildren, are currently staying with their son and daughter-in-law.
The director of security company Trans Natal Flying Squad, Suren Balram, who attended the scene, said the couple had had a “close call”.
He said their home had looked like a scene from a horror movie.
“It looked as if someone had taken a bucket of blood and threw it on the wall.
“The assailant hit her with the washing line pole, and while she was trying to defend herself, two fingers were broken.”
A 43-year-old man appeared in the Ndwedwe Magistrate’s Court on Friday in connection with the incident and the matter was adjourned to August 26 for a formal bail application.
Police spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Thulani Zwane said the allegations levelled against the police would be investigated.
POST