Harrowing details of how a seven-year-old girl was allegedly raped by a 30-year-old man after leaving her family home to go and play with friends after school emerged in the Port Elizabeth High Court on Wednesday.
The girl – now eight – bravely told the court how during the afternoon of July 31 2018 a man she had seen at least three times before the incident at a family member’s home had raped her in an abandoned house near her home.
Her testimony was held in camera, meaning she did not step into the courtroom but testified via an audio-visual linkup to the room next door.
Norman Swartbooi, 30, of Greenbushes, pleaded not guilty to the rape charges on Wednesday.
Testifying with an intermediary, the petite grade 2 pupil said she had gone home after school to do homework.
After she had done her homework, she asked her mother if she could go to a nearby family member’s home to play with her cousin.
Her mother agreed. “I walked to my [cousin’s] house – it was when I went to [my cousin’s house] I found [Swartbooi].
“He was at the house that is not finished being built.
“I went there because myself and [my cousin] always play there.
“I asked [Swartbooi] where [my cousin] was.
“He said he was quickly going to find [her] and said I must wait there,” the girl said.
After a while, Swartbooi returned and said her cousin was packing away clothes in a wardrobe and instructed the girl to tidy up a dresser in the half-built house in Kingfisher Street, Greenbushes.
“[Swartbooi] followed me. I thought he was going to sit but then he took me around my stomach and lay me down on my back [on a mattress].
“[Swartbooi] pulled down my shorts,” the girl said.
During her testimony, the young girl shifted around in her seat and fidgeted with a stuffed toy.
On several occasions the intermediary asked her if she was OK and each time she said she was fine.
The girl said after Swartbooi removed her underwear and shorts she began to cry.
She said he penetrated her and she screamed.
“He strangled me and showed me a knife,” she said.
The girl said while Swartbooi was allegedly raping her, she saw another man looking at what was happening through a broken window.
The man, who was identified in proceedings but who is not being named as his relationship to the girl is not clear, allegedly used a gesture to call a man the girl identified as “the old man” he did not know.
“[The man] said to the old man, ‘[Swartbooi] is raping a young girl’.
“The old man then came and looked while [Swartbooi] was still raping me,” the girl said.
She said, after the two onlookers left, Swartbooi instructed her to put her clothes on.
She said when another man identified as “Boetman” arrived, Swartbooi quickly dressed himself.
“Boetman asked [Swartbooi] why I was crying and he said I had come there [to the half-built house] with a soiled blanket from the other side of the road and that he [Swartbooi] had given me two hidings.
“I then ran and [Swartbooi] said I must take the soiled blanket with me,” the girl said.
The girl said she then ran to a nearby aunt’s house and told her what had happened.
The aunt then took her home and reported the incident to the girl’s grandmother, who called the police. Swartbooi was arrested. Asked by state prosecutor Ishmet Cerfontein if the little girl would be able to recognise her attacker, the girl responded she would.
The case was postponed to Friday to allow Swartbooi’s defence advocate Johan van der Spuy to consult with his client before cross-examining the girl.