Parktown Boys sex accused ‘choked his victims until they fainted’

Shocking new details in the case against a former Parktown Boys’ High School water polo coach, who is charged with sexually assaulting 23 pupils, reveal that he also allegedly tried to strangle or choke his young victims, resulting in a couple of boys losing consciousness.

Among the 160 charges the suspect faces are 32 of attempted murder relating to the choking incidents.

The 22-year-old man was caught on a surveillance camera fondling a 15-year-old in November last year. He was arrested soon afterwards and granted bail a month later.

He appeared in the Johannesburg Magistrate’s Court this week ahead of a pre-trial hearing at the High Court in Johannesburg in September.

Some of the incidents of choking may have taken place during rough play such as mixed martial arts and wrestling in the hostel.

The convener of the Johannesburg Child Advocacy Forum, Luke Lamprecht, said one of the elements of sexually grooming children involved choking victims.

Lamprecht said that choking was a way of maintaining power and dominance.

“You need to show you are physically able to control people and that’s part of it. It is not directly related to sexual stimulation but it’s part of the bigger system which says, ‘I can kill you; I can choke you out; I am stronger than you.’ ”

All but one of the 23 complainants are still at the school and are boarders in the hostel. They are between 14 and 16 years old.

‘Betrayed and violated’

Sources close to the investigation said this week that the accused, who had been one of the school’s star water-polo players when he was a pupil there, allegedly touched the boys’ genitals under water on several occasions while they were training.

One of the complainants said he felt A female teacher at Parktown Boys’ High School has been slapped with a written warning following her insensitive remarks to pupils in an art class.

After a pupil drew a portrait of his mother, another pupil drew a penis on the face of the portrait. The teacher remarked: “You shouldn’t draw that because you are going to excite the hostel boys.”

The incident occurred in May, shortly after details of the alleged sexual abuse of 23 hostel boys by the water polo coach were made public.

Nicholas Greyling, Parktown Boys governing body chairman, confirmed the teacher had appeared before a disciplinary hearing and had been given a written warning.

“The incident was promptly dealt with,” he said. — Prega Govender “ashamed, betrayed, abused and violated”.

The Sunday Times has established that the alleged sexual abuse took place over more than eight months last year.

A source close to the school said it had remained a secret for a long time because the boys had not been ready to talk.

“It’s only because the video evidence was discovered that it came to the fore. It was discovered accidentally,” the source said.

“One of the victims said he experienced challenges academically after the incident. His whole world was turned upside down.”

Lamprecht said an initiation scandal at Parktown Boys’ High in 2009 — which was widely condemned at the time — had not been taken seriously enough by teachers and hostel masters at the time.

A teacher and 12 matric pupils were suspended after the Grade 12s forced Grade 11 pupils from their beds at night, marching them to the rugby field and forcing them to strip naked.

Culture of abuse

“Nobody took it seriously because ‘boys will be boys’ and unfortunately that system, in my opinion, allowed for the sex abuse to occur, along with the attempted murders,” Lamprecht said.

“There was a culture installed there that created a framework for the abuse. But I am not saying that it makes him not liable.”

The suspect’s attorney, Clinton Symes, said the attempted-murder charges were “a bit strange and something which we did not expect to be in the charge sheet”.

“At this point in time there’s one version which is known to the state, so we still need to wait for disclosure of the docket before we can make an assessment,” said Symes.

Nicholas Greyling, the chairman of the governing body at Parktown Boys’ High, said in a statement that it had provided counselling and psychological support to the pupils involved. “A senior representative from the Gauteng education department’s psychological service has visited the school and continues to work closely with us.”