Second gran raped in a week

902 A crime scene expert takes pictures of the scene on 7th street in Linden where 3 men tried to hijack a woman after a chase with the police that started in Robindale. 190208. Picture: Bongiwe Mchunu

902 A crime scene expert takes pictures of the scene on 7th street in Linden where 3 men tried to hijack a woman after a chase with the police that started in Robindale. 190208. Picture: Bongiwe Mchunu

Published Jul 31, 2012

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KwaZulu-Natal - Police are investigating the rape of an 82-year-old woman – in the same area where a 94-year-old great-grandmother was raped last week.

The latest victim has told police she was raped in her bedroom, in the Mambedwini area of Swayimane, near Wartburg, on Saturday night.

Her assailant was an unknown man who covered his face with a cloth. After he left, she ran for help to her son’s house a short distance away.

The elderly woman, who family say is in fact older than 90 because her birth was registered when she was eight years old, said her assailant tortured her with a cigarette lighter, which he held to her eyes while raping her.

Speaking to the Daily News on Monday night, her distraught son, 59, said he had been listening to the Kaizer Chiefs/Orlando Pirates soccer commentary

at the time.

“While concentrating on the radio, I heard this loud knock on the door and someone crying, ‘he has killed me’. I opened and it was my mother, who ran past me before she collapsed.”

The man said he was shocked when she told him and his wife that she had been raped.

“My mother is so old, and watching her crying, and the reason for that, has left me scarred,” he said.

“We reported the matter to the family and the councillor, and the police were called.”

He said they took his mother to a doctor in Dalton and she was referred to Northdale Hospital in Pietermaritzburg, where she underwent further tests.

“She got tablets and today (Monday) we went back and received counselling,” he said. “She is not okay at all. She said that while he was raping her, he held a cigarette lighter to her eyes, giving her a burning sensation.”

After raping her, the man asked her for money, which she did not have.

The son said there did not appear to be forced entry at the home, where his mother lived alone. He suspects that the man had entered the house earlier and lay in wait. He said his mother was asleep when she was attacked.

“I am so upset by this. My mother has never been abused and for her to be abused in this way at her age is despicable,” the son said.

“The world is so terrible now, we don’t know whether we are safe in our home or in bushes. It’s all the same.”

The family wants the rapist to be arrested.

“He needs to be caught and tell us why he did what he did to our mother,” the son said.

Police spokeswoman Lieutenant Joey Jeevan confirmed that a case of rape had been registered.

The police have made an appeal to anyone with information to contact Detective Captain Themba Malinga at 033 387 9519 or on his cellphone on 079 500 1330.

On Monday last week, a 94-year-old woman from Swayimane was raped in her home, allegedly by a 28-year-old man who had just been released from prison in terms of a special remission of sentence deal announced by President Jacob Zuma on Freedom Day.

Cookie Edwards, the executive director of the KZN Network on Violence against Women, said men who raped such old people were sick and had no place in society.

“It’s like they are raping their own mothers and grandmothers. This behaviour is shocking and very despicable,” she said.

“Elderly people should be respected and not abused.”

Edwards said the justice system should not be lenient on people who commited such crimes. “It’s time the communities worked together in rooting out these criminals.” - Daily News

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