Cops tell of their pain in case of mom in child rape
“We are mothers, it was draining”
For 16 months sergeants Relebohile Mokhele and Enez Lekgoathi worked tirelessly piecing evidence together, searching for DNA samples and interviewing witnesses on the brutal rape case of a two-month-old infant.
The two officers from the Meadowlands Family Violence, Child Protection and Sexual Offences unit were instrumental in securing a life sentence imprisonment term for a mother who protected the man who allegedly raped her daughter.
Last week, the South Gauteng High Court in Johannesburg sentenced the 29-year-old mother to life for defeating the ends of justice, aiding a crime as well as protecting someone who committed a crime.
Acting Judge Carla van Veenendal described the case as “unique in that only the person doing the aiding‚ abetting [of the baby’s rape] is being prosecuted‚ while the real perpetrator is not before court with her”.
Yesterday, the two officers who worked on the case spoke about their experience.
“I fell pregnant with my second child during the course of the investigation and became quite overwhelmed with the gravity of this case.
“It’s one of the most horrific cases I have had to deal with,” Mokhele said. She said colleagues would assist her when they noticed she was emotionally drained.
Lekgoathi, also a mother of two, said: “I would get home and see my children and cry because I was dealing with a case that involved an infant who does not know better.
“We went to visit the infant in hospital after reconstructive surgery and we couldn’t bear seeing her with tubes and pipes attached to her body.”
The mother refused to disclose the identity of the rapist.
“First the mother said her child fell from their bed, but this was proven false by the landlady. During cross-examination, she said she landed on her child’s vagina with her knee and that is what led to the injury,” Mokhele recalled.
Lekgoathi added: “She went as far as to say witchcraft was behind her daughter’s injury because nobody touched her as she was with her all the time.”
The infant is now in the custody of the mother’s aunt.