Cape Town - A suspected teen rapist is behind bars after angry residents attacked him in Parkwood on Thursday for allegedly raping an eight-year-old girl.
Angry residents put the 17-year-old boy in a taxi and drove him to Grassy Park Police Station themselves after word spread that the mother of the girl had caught him in the act.
The boy apparently also faces a rape charge in Caledon.
The girl’s mother, 26, says she caught the teen in the act on Wednesday night after returning from a nearby shop.
The traumatised mom says the teen moved to Parkwood a week ago to live with his mother.
“He came from Caledon and his mother told me that they accused him of rape there, but she didn’t believe he did it,” the mom explains.
“I watched him and he didn’t look normal but he was playing with all the children in the street, girls and boys.
“On Wednesday night they were playing in front and I told my daughter to go to the shop, but they were playing skooltjie-skooltjie and he was playing the teacher.
“I said OK I will go because they were playing lekker. There was a big group of children.”
She returned 10 minutes later and got a fright to see all the children had left.
“I went inside the house and there he was in the lounge on top of my child with his penis out.
“I saw it was wet and I started shouting at him. He even put a blanket over them.
“I shouted at him and he told me he had sex with her, but didn’t cum inside her.”
The shocked mother questioned her daughter who told her the teen had first made her lie on her stomach and put his hand over her mouth as she screamed for help.
“She said he then made her lie on her back and she just kept quiet as he went on.”
The mom says she was terrified to tell her family as she believed they would kill the teen so she waited until yesterday morning to report the case.
“I kept her in the same clothes and didn’t wash her. (Yesterday) morning I told my best friend what happened and took my daughter to the clinic.
“But while I was there they told me to come to the station because my friend told the people and they hit him.”
Grassy Park Police Station commander, Col. Dawood Laing, confirms the teen has been arrested and will appear in the Wynberg Magistrates’ Court on Monday.
“The victim has come back from hospital where doctors confirmed she was raped and sodomised,” Laing says.