OPINION

"My rape lie! ‘I sent my innocent brother to prison for 25 years . . .'" - Daily Sun

The front page and lead story of SA's largest daily newspaper, May 2 2014

Daily Sun (May 2 2014) - A FRANTIC mum wants her "rapist" son freed from jail . . . That's because her daughter now says she lied when she said he raped her. AND A DOCTOR HAS FOUND SHE'S STILL A VIRGIN! The brother was jailed in 2007 for 25 years and the truth has just come out.

Now the mum wants justice to be done before it's too late to save her children. Both brother and sister have tried to kill themselves.

The 46-year-old mum said her son was 16 when his seven-year-old sister claimed he raped her.

But after battling her guilty conscience for years, the girl, now 16, confessed her rape story was a terrible lie.

Police spokesman Lieutenant-General Solomon Makgale said police would investigate.

Department of Justice spokesman Mthunzi Mhaga said the son must get Legal Aid to take a statement from his sister and apply to court to have his conviction and sentence overturned.

The mum of Klipgat, near Tshwane, said she believed the girl when she said the "troublesome" boy raped her three times. "I took her straight to Terminus Police Station and the police took us to a doctor," she said.

The doctor looked at the girl's private parts and reported that she had a discharge.

That led to her son being jailed in 2007.

Later, her daughter started acting strangely and aggressively, she said. "She tried to commit suicide several times."

Once the girl threw herself in front of a vehicle.

Then, said the mum, a family friend told her the girl had confessed to him early this year that her rape story was a lie.

With tears in her eyes, the girl told Daily Sun that she had lied because her brother was terrorising the family.

"He was always fighting about money," she said. "It was the only thing I could think of to get rid of him."

The mother said she told the local police, and was sent to the Child Protection Unit. "But they refused to help me so I talked to social workers, who interviewed my daughter.

"The social workers advised me to take her to a doctor for a virginity test. This showed she had never slept with a man," said the mother.

Just recently, social workers at the Free State prison, where her son is serving his sentence, told her he had attempted suicide.

"They told me he used his trousers to hang himself but was found just in time," she said.

"Now I'm afraid I will lose both my children," she said.

) The mother and son can't be named to protect the identity of the under-age daughter.

See the Daily Sun mobi site for more on this and other stories....

 

The Daily Sun is South Africa's largest daily newspaper with an average circulation of 297,614 (Audit Bureau of Circulations 4th Quarter 2013) and a readership of 5.7m (as per AMPS 2012ab). Its Facebook page can be accessed here. It can be followed on Twitter here. To find about advertising on the Daily Sun click here.

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