Fury over teen’s suicide

Court told of one of Hoya’s alleged rape victim’s suicide by poison

A TRAUMATISED Khayelitsha teenager committed suicide after being raped allegedly by Aviwe Hoya – the man accused of four more rape counts.

The girl’s aunt, who cannot be named, testified at the Western Cape High Court yesterday.

She told the court that her niece’s personality and behaviour changed following the incident.

She lost weight and became a “tomboy”.

“She stopped wearing dresses, but [wore] pants and she would hang out with boys,” said the aunt.

She said the girl drank poison and was admitted to Groote Schuur Hospital where she died last year on August 25.

Hoya has been charged with kidnapping, robbing and raping five Khayelitsha pupils. The offences occurred between September 2011 and August 2012.

State prosecutor Maria Marshall contends the victims were on their way to or from school when Hoya ambushed them, threatened to stab them, and forced them to walk with him before taking them to an open field behind Esangweni High School in Kuyasa, Khayelitsha.

The sobbing 59-year-old aunt told Judge Kate Savage that the girl left their home at about 7am but she returned about an hour later crying uncontrollably.

“I had thought someone had assaulted her and came rushing out. I asked her what happened and she said she was raped and I also started crying. I asked her if she knew her attacker and she said no. We went to the clinic.”

She said it was at the Thuthuzela Centre in Khayelitsha Day Hospital that she noticed that her niece had grass on her back and little stones, as if she was lying on the ground.

The aunt said that, since the incident, she has been diagnosed with diabetes.

“I worry too much when I think about the incident.”

She said her niece was “no longer herself, the girl I knew. She started becoming problematic with me and she went to live with her mother. There as well she was problematic”.

An investigating officer in one of the cases, Thandekile Mcitwa, testified that she took a statement from one of the girls.

She said she had booked the crime kit from a doctor before accompanying a photographer to take pictures of the crime scene and of a communal toilet in an open space in Makhaza in Khayelitsha.

Themba Nxasana, a teacher at the school attended by another girl, testified that the victim came late to school and when he asked her why “she burst [into tears] and cried”.

“I tried to calm her but she would not stop crying and I had to call another teacher to talk to her,” said Nxasana.

The case continues today.