Promise of toy ends in rape of girl, 5, court told

SHE was promised a fidget spinner, and without hesitation the five-year-old allegedly accompanied her neighbour to the shop to buy the toy in August.

Yesterday, the man stood in the dock at the Mitchells Plain Magistrate’s Court in Cape Town‚ accused of raping the little girl he had known since the day she was born.

Residents‚ community activists and family were baying for his blood outside the court.

The guardian of the child said the girl was terribly traumatised.

When violence was shown on the television, she burst into tears and begged that it be switched off.

After the alleged rape, the child ran home and explained what had happened.

“The only thing I could think of was to console her and make sure she was OK‚” the woman said.

But the family will have peace of mind knowing that the man will remain in custody until next year.

“To get to the shops, you have to walk across a field – that is where he raped her,” the guardian said.

The child would go to preschool next year but since the incident‚ the woman had become very protective of the little girl, she testified.

“It is as if he had waited for the right moment to attack, because he lives two doors from us. “[The girl] knows him and trusted him‚” she said. The 49-year-old man is due to appear in court again on January 23.

Joanie Fredericks, of the Mitchells Plain Crisis Forum, is glad that he will remain in custody.

“This case is weighing badly on the community,” Fredericks said. “The biological mother of the girl is in a very bad state and cannot cope with what has happened to her daughter.” – TimesLIVE