The Star, February 17, 2009 Edition 1, Angelique Serrao
Dragged out of bed at midnight, they were made to stand on the school field unsure of what was happening.
A group of 12 matric boys told them to strip naked. A tube of Deep Heat was passed around and they were made to put it on their genitals.
This was just the start of a nightmare that left a group of Grade 11 boys at Parktown Boys in Joburg too terrified to tell their parents of their ordeal.
After the burning Deep Heat, the boys were made to go to a Grade 12 pupil, each of whom held a different weapon - a cricket bat, a hockey stick, a golf club …
They went to 11 different matrics for a smack on their backsides, before the head boy lay into every Grade 11 boy with a whip, hitting them on their lower backs and buttocks until he drew blood.
This was an initiation ceremony so that the Grade 11s could bring a kettle into their hostel room.
"My son stood in a line and he told me that he could hear the boys in front of him screaming and crying, and he knew that he would be next," said the anguished mother of one of the boys.
Pene Kimber moved to Joburg from Durban in December and had to look for a school for her 17-year-old son. Living in Kyalami, she placed him in the hostel at Parktown Boys.
Kimber says her son was badly bruised when she saw him a week after the February 2 assault.
He was cut open where the whip had lashed him, he was bleeding and had not healed five days later.
"What makes it worse is that they didn't give them anything to close the wounds, so they kept seeping and sticking to their underpants. Every time they took the pants off it reopened the wound."
Kimber took her son to Sunninghill Hospital. A doctor's report said her son had "extensive bruising and abrasions consistent with an assault with a blunt object". She is considering an assault charge.
After repeatedly calling the school, the mother was sent an e-mail by deputy headmaster Brent Saunders. He admitted the Grade 12s initiated the Grade 11s for them to have appliances in their room.
"This practice is totally prohibited by management, a fact which has been communicated to the boarders on numerous occasions," Saunders said.
An e-mail sent to Kimber after a meeting on Friday detailed punishment meted out, which included counselling, community service, removal of Grade 12 privileges for a term and a written warning.
The Gauteng Department of Education had not responded with comment by last night.
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