Sunday Times

Sol Plaatje lec­turer lays sex as­sault com­plaint

- By PREGA GOVENDER Crime · Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje · Iceland · Austria · God · Belgium · Cape Town · Sol Plaatje University · Conrad Black

● A lec­turer at Sol Plaatje Univer­sity in Kim­ber­ley lodged a com­plaint of sex­ual as­sault with the po­lice this week af­ter a se­nior aca­demic al­legedly touched his gen­i­tals.

The lec­turer, who is mar­ried, al­leges that the man touched him in­ap­pro­pri­ately af­ter vis­it­ing him in his of­fice on Au­gust 27.

“I was shocked be­cause he was a man I trusted. I felt very vi­o­lated and I don’t want to go back there.”

He said he did not re­port the mat­ter to the po­lice im­me­di­ately be­cause he had been at­tend­ing ther­apy ses­sions.

He filed the com­plaint at the Kim­ber­ley po­lice sta­tion on Tues­day.

“If you’re a man and some­one touches your pri­vate parts, how would you re­act? I thank the Lord that I con­trolled my­self be­cause if I fought back, he would have charged me for as­sault.”

He has also lodged a griev­ance with the univer­sity’s labour re­la­tions depart­ment.

“I am psy­cho­log­i­cally dis­turbed now and don’t feel well at all. God will see that jus­tice is done.”

The com­plainant said he had asked mem­bers of his church as well as his col­leagues to pray for him.

The univer­sity’s vice-chan­cel­lor, Pro­fes­sor Yunus Bal­lim, said the in­sti­tu­tion had re­sponded swiftly, but “the is­sues are not as clear as they may ap­pear at first glance”.

He said the univer­sity had in­ves­ti­gated the mat­ter and it was sat­is­fied that the com­plainant has been re­ceiv­ing the nec­es­sary coun­selling.

“We have also met with the coun­sel­lor to dis­cuss our re­sponses and any nec­es­sary ad­di­tional sup­port.”

He said the two par­ties had agreed to a process “for fur­ther assess­ment of the al­le­ga­tions” but that the first two meet­ings had to be post­poned be­cause the com­plainant was booked off sick.

North­ern Cape po­lice spokesper­son, Lt-Col Di­makatso Mooi, con­firmed that a sex­ual as­sault case is be­ing in­ves­ti­gated. “No fur­ther in­for­ma­tion can be di­vulged.”

If you’re a man and some­one touches your pri­vate parts, how would you re­act? I thank the Lord that I con­trolled my­self be­cause if I fought back, he would have charged me for as­sault

The com­plainant

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