My girl is not same after rape, says mom

2014/03/26 DURBAN. Arumugam Naidoo who is accused of kidnapping and raping a young girl. PICTURE: SIYANDA MAYEZA

2014/03/26 DURBAN. Arumugam Naidoo who is accused of kidnapping and raping a young girl. PICTURE: SIYANDA MAYEZA

Published Mar 28, 2014

Share

 

Durban - “My little girl is just not the same any more”. That’s how the mother of a 7-year-old girl described the radical change in her daughter’s behaviour after she was kidnapped, beaten and raped on March 10.

The girl was abducted while walking home from school in Montclair.

She was found in the Bayhead area by a security guard who took her to the Brighton Beach police station.

Phoenix truck driver Arumugam Moonsamy Naidoo, 38, on Thursday pleaded guilty to charges of rape, assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm and abduction before Durban Regional Court magistrate Siphiwe Hlophe.

Before Naidoo’s plea was read out, he turned and looked at the girl’s parents, who were seated in the public gallery, but he did not speak to them.

In her victim impact statement, the mother said her daughter had been a happy and pleasant child but that had changed.

“She no longer goes out to play with her friends. She stays in the house. The other day when she was in the garden, she saw two men walk to the neighbour’s yard and she ran back inside.”

Her child’s injuries were so severe that when she was found, she did not recognise her.

“She had cuts and bruises and had been burnt.

“Some of the injuries – we don’t even know how it happened... I felt like I had gone mad.”

The girl’s father said he had lost his appetite and could not sleep and he worried about his “special child’s” future.

“As parents we struggle to raise her and keep her safe and someone does this in a brutal and cruel way.”

In his plea, Naidoo said he had seen the girl walking on the road and had picked her up and put her in his truck and drove to the Bayhead area where he raped her.

When the girl started crying, Naidoo slapped her face and tied her hands and legs together with plastic.

He hit her head with a brick and left her at the side of the road.

 

The court also heard the girl had been wearing her only school uniform and it had to be taken away as evidence.

Prosecutor Val Melis said sexual offences prosecutors had raised money to buy her a new uniform.

 

The case was adjourned to next week for sentencing.

[email protected]

The Mercury

Related Topics: