Metro cop ‘groomed’ victim
A HIGH-RANKING Ekurhuleni metro cop, Adam Cummings, spent more than a decade sexually grooming a friend of his infant son.
After raping her on multiple occasions, he eventually blackmailed her into finding other children and teenagers to sexually assault.
These are the claims of the now 24-year-old woman, who is charged alongside Cummings with the rape and trafficking of two teenagers and a nineyear-old girl.
Cummings, a former superintendent in the security division at the Ekurhuleni Metro Police Department (EMPD), and Tebogo Johanna Maregele are currently on trial at the High Court in Joburg.
The State has claimed the pair kidnapped their targets from Soweto and took them to secluded areas to allow Cummings to rape them before trying to buy their silence.
The State revealed this week that the investigating officer Mantsha Raphesu took a statement from Maregele after she was arrested in 2015.
The lengthy statement revealed that Maregele was eight when she first met the superintendent in 2004, because she had become friendly with his mistress and young son.
In much the same way as his future victims alleged, Cummings took Maregele to an abandoned area and forced her to have intercourse, before telling her that she had to keep the incident a secret. Even after she moved from Tembisa to Sedibeng, she stayed in communication with Cummings, who she claims raped her again on two separate occasions in 2007.
When she moved to her mother in Soweto in 2009 when she was 15, she claimed they again had intercourse, a pattern that continued until she was 18.
It was at this time that Cummings recruited her to find teenagers or children that he could rape, a proposition to which she agreed.
The statement details the incidents where she found the victims of the current criminal trial, as well as alleged sexual incidents with other teenagers. When Cummings became suspicious that Maregele would speak to the police about the rapes, he asked her to send an incriminating picture that he used to blackmail her into silence.
When the statement was written, Maregele claimed she had witnessed Cummings beating someone and that she feared for her own life. Raphesu took to the stand to explain that he had tried to get Maregele into a witness protection programme after both of her legs were broken in custody.
He said she revealed she was being threatened by Cummings following their arrests, and ultimately refused to enter witness protection.
It’s understood the young woman also refused to take a plea bargain to testify against her co-accused, and has also chosen not to take the stand as part of her defence case.
Cummings took the stand on Wednesday, denying the rape incidents with the 15-year-old and nine-year-old victims.
However, he did admit to an extramarital affair with the 16-year-old victim, saying they had entered into a sexual relationship the year before the alleged incident.
He also confirmed that he had been fired from the EMPD, after he was suspended earlier this year. He has claimed that he was a father figure to his co-accused, and would not say if his relationship ever evolved into anything further.
The trial continues.