‘I started to have strange dreams of pops’

INLSA

DROPPED OUT OF SCHOOL: A 14-year-old boy was allegedly drugged by his step-grandfather and raped when he went to live at his Roodepoort home for three months last year. Picture: Dumisani Sibeko

ANGELIQUE SERRAO

angelique.serrao@inl.co.za

A GRANDFATHER allegedly drugged his 14-year-old grandson and raped him night after night, but despite apparently overwhelming proof that he committed the crime, police have not arrested him.

Warren* went to live with his step-grandfather in Roodepoort for three months last year when his mother endured financial difficulties.

Everyone was happy with the arrangement. The grandfather was a man of high social standing who had appeared in business magazines.

“He brought me up since I was 11 and he knew Warren from when he was born,” Warren’s mom said.

The boy said he had noticed that his grandfather was acting strangely towards him, he stopped speaking to him and gave him charcoal tablets every morning to “detox”.

He said his grandfather, who is very technologically savvy, was spending a lot of time in front of his computer and he had seen on the screen that every room in the house had cameras, including his bathroom. Things started to get strange, Warren said.

After eating supper, he had started feeling drowsy and within 20 minutes had fallen asleep. “I started waking up at two, three in the morning with a funny, tingling sensation.

“At first I thought I had worms. I called gran and told her something was wrong,” the teen said.

His grandmother went to the chemist and bought him medication. But a few weeks later, he told her he thought the worms were still there.

“I kept on having a horrible, swollen, tingly feeling,” he said.

At the same time, his gran began getting SMSes from unknown numbers that spoke about raping a boy.

The messages said things like: “You all clubbed in to have the kids here, I’m a gay man and I have my balls up his a***.”

After a few weeks, Warren started having dreams about his grandfather.

“I started to have strange dreams of pops. The dreams were so real that it played on my mind,” he said.

Warren called his gran and said he wanted to talk. “I told her that I don’t know if I’m dreaming, but I think I’m being raped. I didn’t know if it was real. I felt more confused than anything else.”

Warren’s mother took him to the doctor.

“When he did the check-up, it was everything we thought it was. Then we started putting it all together. Why Warren was tired every night and his teacher told us he couldn’t stay awake at school,” she said.

The doctor told the teenager he had started having dreams of what was happening because his body had started to become immune to the drug.

The family said they had done everything they were supposed to do in reporting the matter to the police. Warren went for numerous medical check-ups, the grandmother’s phone was downloaded at a forensic lab and Warren was taken for counselling.

They had even been made aware that there was proof that allegedly linked the grandfather to the rapes, but said the investigating officer from Florida police station hadn’t bothered to fill in the paperwork to collect it. He also hadn’t interviewed the grandfather.

“We did so much PT from our side. Went to the public prosecutor, but nothing seems to have been done with the information. We just seem to be getting nowhere. The investigating officer won’t answer his phone and he just avoids me,” the grandmother said.

The family turned to crime-fighting unit eBlockwatch.

Eblockwatch owner Andre Snyman started a Facebook page called “he raped his grandson now help us arrest him”. He said they had forensic investigators who had gathered enough evidence to link the grandfather to the crime.

“We have taken the police to the stable door and shown them the evidence. All the police need to do is fill in the proper paperwork to get the evidence released to them. But it hasn’t been done,” Snyman said.

“This is such a disgusting crime and the guy is walking away smiling.”

Warren dropped out of school – he was in Grade 9.

“I can’t focus. Some days I’m fine, others I’m not.

“I get too irritated when people speak about their problems. They don’t really have problems.”

The Star sent queries to the Gauteng provincial office, but after two weeks they had not responded.

*Not his real name