Africa-Press – South-Africa. A couple on the East Rand has pleaded not guilty in the Gauteng High Court, sitting in Palm Ridge, on Monday to charges of grooming and using their children for sexual acts.
The accused, who cannot be named to protect their children’s identities, allegedly raped and sexually assaulted their three children over three years.
The two – aged 41 and 31 – face 42 charges, including rape, sexual assault, conspiracy to commit a sexual offence, aiding and abetting another person to commit a sexual offence, compelled rape, assault with the intent to cause grievous bodily harm, sexual grooming of children, compelling or causing children to witness sexual offences and exposure or display of or causing exposure or display of child pornography.
Their legal representative, Riaan Greyling, told the court his clients denied the charges against them.
The court heard the two, who are out on bail, were now separated. The children are now aged 12, nine and eight.
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The father worked as a boilermaker and the mother was a manager at a toy shop.
Initially, the couple faced 51 charges, but during their court appearance on Monday, prosecutor advocate Rolene Barnard told the court the State would provisionally withdraw some of the charges.
According to the indictment, the accused also had sexual intercourse with each other in their children’s presence and encouraged them to diminish or reduce any resistance or unwillingness to perform sexual acts of penetration with them and be in the presence of or watch them.
“In this manner, the complainants were groomed to ensure compliance with any act/and or to diminish their resistance to any instruction given to them by the accused. As time progressed, the complainants were instructed to perform sexual acts on each other.”
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According to the indictment, the father allegedly committed several acts of sexual penetration with one of his daughters, who was seven to 10 years old at the time.
The parents are accused of unlawfully and intentionally conspiring with each other to commit a sexual offence by allowing each other to perform acts of sexual penetration and sex in each other’s presence on the same child.
The father also allegedly forced the same child to be in the presence of or watch him rape her minor siblings.
Between 2016 and 2018, the 41-year-old father allegedly raped his second daughter on several occasions.
He allegedly performed the same acts on a child who was two to four years old at the time.
The indictment stated the mother also allegedly unlawfully and intentionally sexually violated the child by laying on top of her and rubbing her “naked vagina against the [child’s] naked vagina without the consent of the said complainant”.
The mother allegedly performed the same acts on a child who was two to four years old at the time.
The couple also forced the children to watch movies or films of naked adults engaging in sexual acts.
According to the indictment, the couple also forced one of the children to play with the private parts of two other kids.
On one occasion, the mother also burned one of the children with a cigarette over her body with the intent to cause grievous bodily harm.
The children are expected to testify in-camera in closed court on Tuesday.
“My submission is that it would be in the interest of justice to testify in such a manner, they are minors and are testifying about sexual offences,” Barnard told the court.
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