Africa-Press – South-Africa. The Education Labour Relations Council (ELRC) has dismissed a Northern Cape teacher for exposing pupils to porn and raping a teenage girl.
The council also found that the teacher was unsuitable to work with children and said his name should be added to the National Child Protection Register, which keeps a record of all persons reported and convicted of child abuse or deliberate neglect.
During a hearing, it emerged that the man committed the acts while employed as a mathematics and English teacher at AB Kolwane Primary School in Kuruman.
The girl’s aunt and guardian testified at the hearing that the teacher had an affair with her niece and that she used to sleep over at his house.
She also testified that, despite poor school attendance, the child always passed her exams.
The girl, who was 14 years old at the time of the incident in November 2022, testified before the council that the man used to take her and other pupils to his house under false pretences of asking them to help clean his residence.
He would then expose them to pornographic movies and later rape her.
The girl described the ordeal as painful and told the council that this happened on three separate occasions.
She said the teacher threatened to kill her if she told anyone about the ordeal.
The ruling reads:
A boy, who was 13 years old and in Grade 6 at the time, testified before the council that he, the girl and another boy once accompanied the teacher to his house in his car. The boy testified that when they arrived at his home, the teacher showed them pornographic material on his laptop.
He then took the girl into his bedroom and left them outside. The boy further testified that they heard the girl making “sexual screaming noises” from the bedroom.
The boy testified that the teacher would also show them pornographic material on his laptop in his car.
In his testimony, the man denied the allegations and said he was a dedicated teacher who would often go “the extra mile” for his job.
He testified that he also performed extra duties over the years without additional remuneration.
He claimed to have sacrificed his private vehicle to conduct official duties and said that, at some point, he used R10 000 of his own money to help the employer feed children at an event.
The teacher also said he held various positions on different committees, including in the school governing body (SGB).
Representatives of Northern Cape Education did not cross-examine the teacher because he “did not comment or challenge the allegations against him during the examination-in-chief”.
A former member of the SGB, who testified on behalf of the teacher, told the council that he heard about the rumours of sexual assault for the first time at a parents’ meeting.
He testified that it was unlikely that the teacher could commit such acts and said the matter was a “conspiracy” against the teacher based on tensions at the school.
However, the arbitrator, advocate David Pietersen, found the girl’s aunt to be a credible and reliable witness, and accepted her testimony.
Pietersen said:
He also found the girl to have been a credible and reliable witness.
However, he found that the teacher did not challenge or reject the allegations against him during cross-examination.
“My finding, on a balance of probabilities, is that the boy and girl’s version of the pornographic videos is more probable than that of the employee and that the employee is guilty of this allegation.
“My finding is that the employee had sexual intercourse at least twice with the girl child. He literally had a sexual relationship with a minor; a minor who could not give consent,” Pietersen said.
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