Arrested grandmother denies rape allegation

A Windhoek resident arrested on a rape charge involving one of her grandchildren denied in the Windhoek Magistrate’s Court yesterday that she has ever sexually molested her grandson.

“I’ve never done that. Never,” the woman said when public prosecutor Seredine Jacobs told her that her seven-year-old grandson has alleged that she touched and stimulated his genitals.

The woman (58), who may not be identified in order to protect the identity of her grandson, also denied that she was present when her son, who is a medical doctor, allegedly sexually molested her grandson in his car at a school in Windhoek at the start of February this year.

“I was not there,” she responded when Jacobs put that allegation to her.

The woman, who was arrested on Thursday last week, started to testify in a bail hearing before magistrate Immanuel Udjombala yesterday.
She and her son, who was arrested on Tuesday last week, are both charged with one count of rape.

The state is alleging that each of them on diverse occasions from 2018 to January this year committed sexual acts with the doctor’s son, who was born in 2017 and is now seven years old.

Both accused are applying to be granted bail.

Jacobs informed the magistrate at the start of the bail hearing that the state is opposing the application for bail.

The boy’s grandmother told the court she and her grandson’s mother were on good terms before the boy was born, but their relationship deteriorated after his birth.

She said she did not feel welcome when she went to see her grandson for the first time after his birth and the boy’s maternal grandmother has also been antagonistic towards her.

She and her family did not attend her son’s wedding to the mother of her grandson around March 2018, because she felt her son’s bride did not respect her or her family, she recounted.

By January 2019, her son moved out of his and his wife’s home and went to stay with his mother again, the court heard.

The woman said around December 2019, a social worker brought her grandson to her house, where the boy then lived with her and his father until her son moved to his own house.

In the meantime, it was decided that the boy’s parents would share custody of their son on a weekly rotation, with the boy living with his father one week and his mother the next.

In October last year, however, the custody arrangement was ended and the boy placed in his mother’s sole custody, in the wake of allegations that his father had sexually molested the child, the court heard.

Jacobs told the woman the allegations against her son were made by the boy himself and not only by his mother.

The boy also made the allegations – saying that his father committed sexual acts with him – to a social worker near the start of February this year, Jacobs said.

In a statement made by the social worker, she recorded that the boy had told her that his father went to his school in Windhoek at the start of February and that he took the boy to his car, where he committed a sexual act with the child.

The boy said his grandmother was also there when his father was committing a sexual act with him in the car, but she was standing outside, the social worker recorded.

“I was not there,” the woman responded to that claim.

She said the last time she had direct contact with her grandson was in October last year, before he was removed from his father’s custody.
The bail hearing is continuing.

The two accused are represented by defence lawyers Sisa Namandje, Mbushandje Ntinda and Karel Gaeb.

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