Man in court for baby rape
2003-10-14 14:04
Cape Town - A 35-year-old man appeared briefly on Tuesday in the Blue Downs Magistrate's Court in connection with the rape of a nine-month-old baby girl.
He was remanded to October 23 for legal representation to be appointed, a court official confirmed.
According to the head of the east metropole child protection unit, the infant was discovered on the kitchen floor of her Kuils River home after being assaulted on Sunday.
"There was a family lunch and everybody went to lay down and sleep. The girl was with her mother on the bed, but was later discovered on the kitchen floor," said Superintendent Jan Swart.
The matter was reported to police, who arrested the suspect later that Sunday. The man was known to the family.
He said the girl was being cared for in Tygerberg hospital, not just on medical grounds, but also so that the family's domestic situation could be evaluated.
Swart said it was extremely difficult to quantify the trauma the baby experienced and contextualise the alleged rape.
"It is difficult to understand how that could happen and what could move someone to do that (rape)," he said.
He said that in the two weeks of this month alone, 50 cases of sexual assault against children under the age of 15 were reported to his unit.
According to a police statement issued on Tuesday, during April, May and June of this year, 48.9% of all rape and attempted rape cases reported to the police in the entire Western Cape were reported to police in the eastern metropole.
Among the recent cases reported was the rape of a two-year-old girl from Du Noon informal settlement on Saturday. No arrests were made by Tuesday morning.
The eastern metropole consists of 22 police stations and the area covered stretched from Atlantis on the West Coast to Gordons bay in the Helderberg region and included Goodwood, Elsies River, Delft, Kuilsriver, Khayelitsha, Macassar and Parow.
Meanwhile, hospital spokesperson Martie Carstens said the baby was in a satisfactory condition in the children's wing.
Carstens said the child's mother was at her side on Tuesday morning.
Carstens said it was unclear at this stage when the child would be released because the social workers were also dealing with the case.
- SAPA