Family-law advocate in dock for child rape

Woman claims he raped her multiples times from ages 5-12

AFAMILY-LAW advocate and acting judge has been arrested and charged with the sexual assault and multiple rape of a five-year-old child.

Yesterday morning, the advocate handed himself over to the police after an eightmonth investigation process.

The 45-year-old, who specialises in family law and has worked as an acting judge in the Labour Court, is well known in the legal fraternity.

Last week, the investigating officer, Captain Veronica Banks, of the serial electronic crimes investigation unit, informed the lawyer of the case against him at his offices in Sandton, negotiating that he hand himself over yesterday morning.

The advocate stands accused of sexually grooming the child of a family friend between 2004 and 2010, and during the same period, sexually molesting and raping her multiple times.

The advocate was charged with five counts – two of rape, two of sexual assault and one of grooming – in the Johannesburg Magistrate’s Court before he applied for bail.

Banks was summoned to testify during the bail hearing, explaining how the child, now a 19-year-old young woman, had come forward with her story of abuse.

Banks told the court that the complainant was just five when the advocate, a close family friend, began the grooming process.

When he came over to visit the parents in their Craighall Park entertainment room, he would allegedly make excuses to return to the main house, where the children had been sleeping.

On numerous occasions, he would allegedly visit the then five-year-old’s room, starting by tickling her and telling her how beautiful she was.

Eventually the tickling turned into fondling, and eventually sexual penetration. The final incident allegedly took place in 2010, where, after lifting her top and seeing her breasts developing, he told the 12-year-old girl that “she was getting too old for (him)” and that they needed to stop.

It was during this part of Banks’ testimony that the advocate shook his head, sighing deeply in the dock.

When asked by prosecutor Richard Mashobane why the young woman had not come forward sooner, Banks explained that the child had developed a crush on her abuser, because he had always been so complimentary during the incidents.

“It was only as she started dating in high school that her boyfriend noticed how she recoiled from any signs of affection.”

She confided in him about the abuse, before eventually telling her parents in 2016, though she did not wish to report the case until she had finished her matric year.

It was only in the middle of 2017, after months of therapy and trauma counselling, that the case was eventually reported to the police with the help of Women and Men Against Child Abuse.

In his bail affidavit, the advocate vehemently denied the claims, although he chose not to comment on the merits of the State’s case. What he did say, however, was that the parents of the child had begun to dislike him, as the mother had developed romantic feelings for him and he had not reciprocated, leading to what he described as “animosity”.

He claimed the father had sent him a WhatsApp message in 2016, claiming he knew of the abuse and that the child’s life had been destroyed.

But when he said he had no idea what he was being accused of, the father said the authorities would handle the case.

The presiding magistrate granted bail of R10 000 and postponed the case to March 19.