As the Parktown Boys' High School sex pest avoids conviction on 171 criminal charges, the parents of the complainants have made their anger and sadness known, with one going so far as to publicly confront Gauteng Education MEC Panyaza Lesufi.
Yesterday, at the High Court sitting in Palm Ridge, former water polo coach Collan Rex was found guilty of 144 charges of sexual assault and a further 12 of common assault for his conduct against more than a dozen pupils.
However, some of the parents who spoke to the Saturday Star yesterday said they were deeply disappointed that the 22-year-old was able to avoid the rape, attempted murder, grooming and exposure of a child to pornography charges.
“To call our boys liars, our legal system is so flawed. I feel the court didn’t see the whole picture,” one source linked to the case said yesterday. “I believe (Rex) is a product of the school. I don’t think he needs to serve 35 years in prison, but these boys need justice.”
One parent at the proceedings confronted Lesufi outside the court, demanding to know why the Education Department had failed to deal with another teacher at the school, Remo Murabito, who was found to have been involved in multiple incidents of misconduct.
Numerous teachers at the school have been accused of victimising pupils involved in the Rex matter, racism, physical assault, perpetuating a violent initiation culture and a code of silence that prevented pupils from coming forward about abuse.
Two independent law firm probes found evidence against teachers at the school, resulting in four resignations, and resulted in two teachers being transferred to the Gauteng Department of Education (GDE) district offices.
However, during his confrontation with Lesufi outside the court, the parent insisted the department had failed to suspend or deal with Murabito, who was charged with assaulting a pupil earlier this year, and found in the reports to have encouraged initiation practices at the school. Lesufi said he believed Murabito was employed under the Parktown School Governing Body, despite earlier confirmations that he was a GDE employee.
Last week, the Saturday Star reported that, almost half-a-year after the assault charge was laid, his disciplinary hearing had yet to be concluded. However, Lesufi said he would investigate the allegations.
The MEC also confirmed allegations that Nik Muiznieks, another former teacher whose aggressive, sexual and racist rant was exposed in the Saturday Star earlier this year, had already been hired at another school.
The Saturday Star is in possession of a purported recording in which Muiznieks labelled learners who came forward about the victimisation as “snitches” and “evil”. In the alleged 45-minute rant, Muiznieks threatens to blow up the boarding house where some of the alleged victims reside, chop off their heads, and then calls an Indian pupil “Isis”, and asks him where he can buy explosives.
His rant also addresses one of the abuse victims, telling him not to be offended. “Some Parktown Boys are monkeys and this is not a racial statement - there are black monkeys and white monkeys,” he also said.
Another two teachers at Parktown Boys, Etienne le Roux and James Furlonge, were due to continue their disciplinary hearings on Thursday, but Lesufi said parents were concerned that only the charges from the first report were being heard at the disciplinary hearing, preventing the hearing from going ahead.
However, he insisted that another disciplinary would be instituted to interrogate the other charges stemming from the second report.