A former scholar patroller accused of rape at AB Xuma Primary School in Soweto has been acquitted of all charges against him.
Johannes Molefe, 58, faced three charges of rape and 11 of sexual assault.
In 2017, several pupils from the school accused Molefe of touching their private parts while others claimed he raped them.
Delivering his judgment on Wednesday, Judge Peet Johnson emphasised that there were a series of errors during the collection of evidence that led to the contamination of the case.
In a scathing judgment, Judge Johnson came down hard on the prosecution and went to the extent of going through the code of conduct on how prosecutors need to conduct themselves.
“It is quite a sad moment for us but we need to respect the judgment because there were a lot of things that the Judge indicated [as] errors committed by the police, prosecution and the Teddy Bear clinic during their process, including our officials,” said Gauteng Education spokesperson Steve Mabona.
The department said the case was a lesson that educators and employees need to be sensitised on how to deal with cases of sexual abuse to avoid contaminating cases.
“It is an indication that when coming to training our educators, we need to do more. We have already started with the process of training our employees at our schools that when such cases are reported, they know what to do.
“The Judge was very clear that the process of taking learners into the same classroom for questioning without privacy was an issue... We need to go back as the department [to review our course of action] when we receive such complaints...” said Mabona. – SAnews.gov.za
