Father of assaulted KZN schoolgirl wants attacker arrested
The father of the schoolgirl seen on a video being assaulted by a male learner has warned that he wants the perpetrator arrested "or else he might die at my hands".
The furious father told News24 on Friday that he has seen the “traumatising video” and has since deleted it from his phone.
The incident happened at Siyathuthuka Secondary School in Inanda, north of Durban in November last year when his daughter was about to write her final exams.
He wished that police would speedily arrest the male learner who stays in the same area as him.
"Whenever he sees me, he runs away. I wish police arrest him soon before I catch him first, because if I do, he might die at my hands and I’ll end up in jail," he said.
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He said on the day of the incident, he went to the perpetrator’s home but his parents were not there.
"I only found him there. He told me that he beat her up because she and other girls had said he was skinny like he was HIV positive," he said.
On the same day, the single father said he went to a local police station in the area, but police were not willing to open a case for his daughter.
"I took my daughter and the blood stained school uniform she wore during the assault as she bled from her nose. Police there first told me there were no police vans available to go take us to the perpetrator's home. They then told me that it would be a waste of time to open a case against the boy because he would be set free in court," he said.
'Hurts me very much'
He said he did not go to the school where the incident took place because he had "assumed that the teachers were aware of the incident since it took place on the school premises".
He said the parents of the perpetrator should have come to his house to discuss the incident.
"I'm sure they heard that I was there looking for them but they’ve never come to me to talk about what had happened. That hurts me very much," he said.
He said he did not report the matter to the Department of Education because he did not have their contact details.
"But this morning [Friday], [Mthandeni] Dlungwana [KZN MEC for Education] called me," he said, adding that he trusts the department will help him open a case.
He said he has moved his daughter to another school in the area.
"She passed last year and she is still doing well at school although sometimes she tells me that other learners keep tormenting her about the video," he said.
Dlungwana's spokesperson Kwazi Mthethwa on Friday told News24 that the department’s officials were currently locked in a meeting with the principal of the school where the incident occurred.
Mthethwa had on Thursday asked people to stop circulating the video on social media to protect the victim.
Police were not immediately available for comment.
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