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With these words, an 8-year-old boy rescued his 5-year-old sister from the home where their drug-addicted parents allegedly horribly abused them.
The boy made his sister pack a few clothes in her small backpack before he took the house keys and R200 from his drugged father’s wallet. The children then locked the security gate of the house behind them and ran hand in hand down the street.
That was how members of Doornpoort’s community policing forum in Pretoria found them a year ago.
Police found the drugged parents in the house. They were charged with drug offences, possession of child pornography and child abuse, and the children were placed in foster care.
It later emerged that both parents allegedly took photographs while sexual acts were committed on the little girl, and her brother had allegedly been raped with a stick. The children had also allegedly been encouraged to commit sexual acts on each other.
But the children’s ordeal didn’t end when they escaped their home.
When the boy was later removed from his 50-year-old foster mother’s home for displaying sexually deviant behaviour, he was, she said, left in the care of a relative who returned him to his parents.
He remained there for months before eventually being removed again and placed in a children’s home.
The foster mother now fears that the parents will be allowed to see their daughter again. They frequently ask to see her and are not prohibited by their bail conditions from making contact with her.
“She is an angel and I’m deeply fond of her. I cannot allow her to be hurt further,” the foster mother said.
She was in the Pretoria Regional Court last week, where the hearing of the parents, who are 27 and 33, was again postponed.
The parents were neatly dressed and there was no sign of how they had looked while living in the shocking conditions the police found them in last year, according to the foster mother.
The first thing the girl asked for when she was finally brought to safety was porridge, the foster mother said.
“Their power had been cut off for two weeks and there was no food besides a piece of dry bread.”
The boy had only been to school eight times during that term.
The girl told her foster mother that her father had raped her while wearing headphones after looking at porn on his computer. The louder she screamed, the louder he allegedly set his earphones.
On one occasion, both parents took photographs while a friend of the mother was committing sexual acts with the girl. The boy was also allegedly raped repeatedly with a foreign object.
The parents are provisionally facing charges of possession of child pornography, child abuse and possession of the drugs dagga and cat.
Further charges, including the alleged rape and molestation of their two biological children, are expected to be added to their charges at their next court appearance.
The case was postponed pending further investigation. The couple will appear in court again in August.
