The police are investigating a case of incest after a Soweto man allegedly fathered children with his biological daughter.
In a chilling case reminiscent of the sexual offences of Josef Fritzl – the Austrian man who incarcerated his daughter in his house and fathered seven children with her – the Soweto man has allegedly fathered two children (if not three) with his middle daughter.
The daughter lives with her father and the children aged 15, two and five months, in his four-room house in the township.
The identities of the man and his daughter are known to The Star. Their names and the location of the house are being withheld to protect their children.
The man, in his early sixties, also allegedly attempted to sexually violate his younger and elder daughters, but they both thwarted his evil intentions.
The Gauteng Social Development Department has taken the younger daughter to a place of safety because her father allegedly abuses her and accuses her of interfering in his alleged sexual relationship with his other daughter.
The Star spoke to three close relatives, who all confirmed the man’s alleged sexual abuse on his second born daughter, aged 33.
The relatives also corroborated each other about the man fathering children with the daughter. They said the man’s wife died in November last year from a suspected heart failure. It was apparently caused by depression after she learnt of her husband’s incestuous actions.
“I think my mother was too afraid to talk about the whole thing (the sexual abuse) because it caused her a lot of stress and depression.
‘‘Whenever I asked her about it, she would just cry and tell me to leave her alone as I would cause her to die of heart attack,” one of the daughters said.
The daughter initially denied the alleged sexual abuse but she later admitted it while ranting about the allegations. ”It’s normal that when a father loves one of his children, people think I am in love with him… Who told you that? What’s the problem if he (her father) sleeps with me? I actually feel good, you know. Just like the way you feel when you sleep with your wife,” she said, before she hung up.
The alleged sexual abuse started when the child was in her early-teens. Her father began to seduce her by showering her with gifts and money.
Apparently still naive, the girl boasted to her friends about how her dad loved her more than her siblings. So besotted with his daughter was the man that he would prevent her from leaving the house and socialising with her peers. He possessiveness and jealousy towards her continued to increase.
At one stage when the girl ventured out of the house, said a relative, the man got so angry that he tortured her by clamping jumper cables on her ears until she bled.
Relatives claimed they became suspicious of alleged sexual abuse when, in 2000, one of them caught the second-born daughter entering her father’s bedroom and then locked herself inside while her mother was away.
“I asked her why she did that. She said it wasn’t my business,” said a relative, adding that she reported the incident to the man’s wife.
The girl later admitted entering the bedroom when quizzed by her mother.She claimed that she had entered the room to administer some medication to her father through his anal opening – an explanation that relatives found “very strange”.
“I could see she has lost respect for him (as a father). It shows there is something going on between them,” said another relative.
As the man’s obsession with his second born daughter grew, relatives claimed that he banished his younger daughter from the house.
The girl now lives in the backyard shack. It is understood that the man had also banished his wife from the house.
“Sometimes I try to forget about the whole thing and not involve myself. But I feel pain when I think about how my mother used to sleep in the toilet and how she died because of suffering,” said another relative.
Relatives are now concerned about the welfare of the children, especially that the 15-year-old has started to confront his mother about who his father is.
“When she (the second born daughter) was pregnant with the third child, my father told my mother that she must know that the pregnancy belonged to him. It worsened her condition,” a relative said. “When I asked my father about it, he chased me from his house.”
The Department of Social Development spokesman Sello Mokoena urged the police to get to the root of this “heinous” allegation. “Given the current wave of sexual offences it is clear that South Africa is grappling with a serious moral dilemma,” he said.
Provincial spokeswoman Lieutenant-Colonel Katlego Mogale said the allegations being made were viewed in a very serious light. “Inquiry has been made and the Family Violence, Child Protection and Sexual Offences unit has already obtained a statement from the victim and they are investigating these allegations.”
Details
Relatives gave detailed incidents they said proved the alleged sexual abuse was taking place.
*The man banished his wife and two daughters from the house. He now lives with his middle daughter, as a “couple”, and their children.
* The man does not allow the daughter to go out of the house. She only sneaks out when he is away.
* The daughter had a frosty relationship with her late mother and other relatives.
* When her mother died, she and her father did not show any signs of grief.
* The daughter never shies away from wearing her father’s clothes and caps.
* The daughter always does her father’s laundry, including underwear.
Hall of shame
2006: A man from KwaNyamazane, Mpumalanga, appeared in the Nelspruit Regional Court on charges of rape and incest after he allegedly fathered three children – then aged six, three and two years – with his biological daughter. It was alleged that the man kept his family virtual prisoners in their home. He refused to allow his wife and daughter to leave the house unless they were going to buy groceries
2006: A man from KwaNyamazane, Mpumalanga, appeared in the Nelspruit Regional Court on charges of rape and incest after he allegedly fathered three children – then aged six, three and two years – with his biological daughter. It was alleged that the man kept his family virtual prisoners in their home. He refused to allow his wife and daughter to leave the house unless they were going to buy groceries
2006: A brother and sister were arrested in Bapsfontein, Mpumalanga, for allegedly committing incest and concealing the births of up to nine children over 16 years. The 40-year-old man and his 32-year-old sister had allegedly been having an affair since 1984.
2008: A Roodepoort father pleaded guilty in the Johannesburg High Court to raping his 10-year-old daughter six times, photo-graphing her in sexual acts with him and her mother and forcing her to watch and film as he had sex.
2008: An Austrian man, Josef Fritzl, was arrested for allegedly holding his daughter captive and physically assaulting, sexually abusing and raping her numerous times during her imprisonment. The incestuous relationship resulted in the birth of seven children and a miscarriage.
2010: A man from New Jersey in the US who claimed that his apocalyptic visions led him to rape his five daughters, was found guilty of sexually assaulting his daughter after she testified that she had given birth to his child.
2011: Austrian police arrested an elderly man on suspicion of raping his wife and two daughters for 40 years while keeping them prisoner at their home. The man, Gottfried W, is said to have started his sexual assault when one daughter was 12 and the other four.
The Star