A Despatch resident thought he had everyone fooled, leading them to believe he had jumped on a plane and left the city along with sordid secrets of alleged abuse of his stepdaughter.
However, he did not account for CCTV cameras at Gqeberha’s Chief Dawid Stuurman International Airport catching him leaving the terminal building and walking out of the airport premises minutes after he arrived on December 17.
Now, in addition to the police, the man, who is still at large, has a father hell-bent on bringing him to justice for allegedly sexually abusing his 13-year-old daughter for three years.
Police spokesperson Captain Gerda Swart confirmed the man had been charged with rape and was also facing charges related to exposing a child to pornography.
A warrant of arrest has been issued but not been served yet.
The teen’s 45-year-old father, who cannot be named to protect the identity of his daughter, said he had first caught wind of the alleged sexual assaults after the girl and her 18-year-old brother went to visit him for the school holidays.
According to the father, who has been divorced from the children’s mother since 2010, his daughter relayed that on November 26 she had accompanied the stepfather to a takeaway outlet and while they were sitting in the car the man allegedly watched pornography on his cellphone.
When she told him to stop, the man apparently said he would do what he wanted and continued to watch the explicit material.
She told her father that it was not the first time something like that had happened.
The daughter alleged that after returning home from the takeaway the man had continued to watch pornography while sitting on a couch and he had coerced her to sit with him and fondle his upper body.
He had paid her not to say anything, the father claimed.
“After four days of discussions [with their grandmother who lives on the same premises], I decided to inform the mother about the situation, whereupon she said she would contact [the stepfather] and report back to me,” the man said.
After 10 days, the mother allegedly told the father she did not know whose word to believe.
“Pathetic in my opinion. You always believe your child,” he said.
That same day, the father took his daughter to the Kabega Park police station, but was advised to lay a complaint at the Despatch police station.
“There was no help from [the Despatch police] to open a case or to arrest him.
“There was a gentleman who drove home with us to warn [the stepfather and mother] that the case would be investigated,” he said.
The father said that on December 12 he had been visiting a former police officer friend and had told him about the alleged abuse.
“He could see a reaction in [my daughter’s] body language as we talked.
“He called me to one side and said there was something deeper than just the porn story.
“He then called the FCS [family violence, child protection and sexual offences unit] and arranged an immediate appointment,” he said.
When questioned by a police officer, the man said, his daughter had opened up and said she had been raped and sexually assaulted by the stepfather.
The next day the man and his daughter were escorted by police to the Uitenhage Provincial Hospital in Kariega.
After an examination, it was confirmed that the teen had been sexually penetrated.
“For every second he [allegedly] hurt my daughter I hope he gets an hour of torture back,” the father said.
A docket was subsequently opened and an arrest warrant issued.
According to the man, arrangements were made for him to accompany the police to the stepfather’s house for the arrest to be made, but by the time they arrived the man had fled.
His vehicle was then spotted at the airport, where it has been since.
Asked what the police were doing about the allegations that the man had fled the city, Swart said the investigation team was following up on all relevant leads, but she did not divulge any further details about the case.
Airport manager Claudia Daniels said the alleged perpetrator had entered the long-term parking at 7.34am on December 17 left the vehicle at 7.43am.
In CCTV footage the man, wearing a grey padded hoodie, blue jeans, grey cap and grey hiking boots and carrying a grey backpack, proceeds on foot in the direction of the terminal building two minutes later.
He then walks past the building along the drop-off zone, down the inner bus lane under the canopy and turns in the direction of the Road Lodge Hotel in Airport West Road.
He is not seen again.
Prominent Bay attorney Dean Murray said the father and his daughter could possibly claim damages against the police and the state if they were able to prove that any inaction from the authorities had caused further harm to the alleged victim.
Murray said the warrant still stood for the suspect’s arrest and the man should be red-flagged on all airport systems.
He said should it emerge during investigations that the child’s mother had been aware of the alleged sexual assaults and done nothing about it, she too could be arrested and charged for failing to take the necessary steps to protect her daughter.
The emotional father, who dropped his daughter off at the airport to visit her aunt in Gauteng on Thursday morning, said he would stop at nothing to find the man who had allegedly raped his daughter.
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