Ex-coach ‘choked’ boys, court hears

‘I couldn’t breathe,’ boy says, but defence claims Rex ‘was playing’.

Defence says Rex was ‘just playing’.

The defence in the trial of the former Parktown Boys’ High School assistant water polo coach, Collan Rex, put it to the first state witness that he had merely been playing with the boys and not trying to kill them.

A week ago, Rex pleaded guilty to 144 charges of sexual assault. He also faces 183 charges, ranging from attempted murder, rape, sexual grooming and exposing minors to pornography.

During proceedings yesterday at the High Court sitting in the Palm Ridge Magistrate’s Court, state prosecutor Arveena Persad called the first witness, a 17-yearold who was a boarding pupil at Parktown Boys in 2015 and 2016, whom Rex admitted to sexually assaulting. “Do you know Collan Rex?” Persad asked.

“He was my water polo coach and hostel master ... in 2016,” the boy responded.

The boy told the court that he recalled Rex “dry humping” him and touching his private parts.

“Is there anything else the accused did to you?” Persad asked.

“He choked me ... he would put me in a head lock.”

The boy said that on multiple occasions, Rex would come into their rooms after a study session and wrestle with some boys.

He said when the other boys saw that he couldn’t fight Rex off, he would stop.

He said this happened about 10 times in 2016, when he was in Grade 9.

The boy said the incidents happened in the dormitory and once in the water polo ball room, when Rex closed the door behind him and wrestled him to the point where he couldn’t breathe.

Persard then asked the 17-yearold about a video that was taken.

“We were going to a water polo club match and waiting in the hostel’s relaxing room and Rex started wrestling us.

“He dragged another boy to another room but I’m not sure what happened after that. He kicked a boy in the chest and was lying with us, touching our genitals.”

The boy added that at a tournament in Durban, Rex went into the shower with a boy.

Defence lawyer William Robertse questioned the boy about the circumstances that led to Rex putting him in a headlock. “Were you playing with one another, or he had a squabble with you?”

“It was not a fight, he just picked you randomly,” the boy responded.

He told the court that at some point he had had a close relationship with Rex, until things changed.

Robertse asked why he didn’t ask why he was being choked.

“I was scared of him. He led us to believe that it was normal. We saw him as one of our friends.”

Robertse then put it to the boy that it was not Rex’s intention to try and kill him.

Judge Peet Johnson asked the boy how Rex made him believe that it was normal to try and kill him.

“In the dorm, the wrestling was playful but Rex brought aggression into it,” the boy said.

Robertse read a statement from another boy stating that it became a routine for Rex to come over to them when he was on duty and it also became a norm to wrestle with each other. It didn’t bother them unless it was someone who had not experienced it before, the statement said.

Robertse put it to the boy that Rex was just playing. “I don’t know because he would choke us until we couldn’t breathe,” the boy said.

The trial continues. – ANA