School in shock after 11 taken into custody over initiation assault
For three months, one woman was adamant that something should be done about the boys who assaulted and traumatised her son during an initiation ceremony.
Yesterday, as police swooped on Parktown Boys' High, Pene Kimber, the mother of a former Grade 11 pupil, saw action being taken for the first time.
Police arrested 11 matric boys at the school on charges of assault with the intent to do grievous bodily harm. Initially, three teachers were also due to be arrested, but at the last moment the warrants were not executed.
Police arrived at the school yesterday morning after senior prosecutor John Metswanere issued warrants of arrest for 12 boys and three teachers on Monday.
The arrests were made after Kimber laid charges in February after her son was subjected to an initiation ceremony that left him bruised and bleeding.
None of the other Grade 11 boys subjected to the same initiation ceremony were prepared to make statements against the matric boys.
Once the arrests were made, Kimber said it wasn't pleasant facing the boys' parents, but she wanted to stick by the charges as she felt that the initiation ceremonies at the school needed to come to an end. "I knew it would be unpleasant, but I was prepared for it," said Kimber. "I'm not backing down from this."
When police arrived at the school yesterday morning, they went straight to principal Tom Clark's office. The boys were called to the office and Kimber's son was asked to identify the boys who allegedly assaulted him.
The parents of the matrics arrived at the school and accompanied the police van that took their sons, most of whom are minors, to the Hillbrow police station.
One of the boys was apparently at a dentist and was not arrested.
Kimber said the parents of the boys were very upset and did not want their sons to get into the police van, demanding a warrant from the investigating officer.
Kimber heard that one of the matrics already had a suspended sentence for armed robbery.
At the police station, parents stood outside, phoning lawyers to help bail out their sons and talking among each other.
When Kimber and her son left the station, after making a statement identifying the matric boys, some parents took photos of both her and her car.
By early yesterday evening, the 11 pupils were still at the police station, and they were released later in the evening.
"They were released on a warning because they were acting within the school's policies and tradition," said Captain Bhekizizwe Mavundla.
He said the pupils would appear in the Hillbrow Magistrate's Court on Friday. He confirmed that the matrics were all aged 17 and 18.
In February, Kimber spoke out about the initiation her son went through at the school's hostel. The Grade 11 boys in Druce Hall were lined up naked in the middle of the night by 11 matrics.
They were made to put Deep Heat on their genitals and got smacked on their backsides with cricket bats, hockey sticks and golf clubs by each of the matrics. Then the head boy whipped the boys with a cricket bat until he drew blood.
Kimber was horrified when she saw her son's bruises the following weekend and spoke out about what happened. She subsequently received threatening phone calls and laid a charge of assault and harassment.
When The Star broke the story in February, hundreds of parents came forward, telling similar stories about violent initiations.
It was the first time in many years that these events came out in public, as the boys were always told never to speak out.
Attempts to speak to the principal and school governing body chairperson at Parktown Boys' were unsuccessful.
No comments:
Post a Comment