NELSPRUIT – “There is nothing worse than a child molester; he is like a thief in the night and will attack when you are at your weakest.”
These are the heart-wrenching words of the father of the two girls who were sexually assaulted by a close family friend, Carl Lotter, for nearly two years. They were both under the age of 10 when the molestation started. “Carl treated my babies like adult women! Because of him they not only lost their childhood, but missed out on their entire teenage stage too as they had to spend year after year in court.”
The Lotter case dragged on for years in the Nelspruit Court with delay after delay, before the accused was sentenced. Yet through all this the family, specifically the two daughters, remained strong and close-knit. “We knew we had to see it through so that a precedent could be set for other girls like us, to show that determination would pay off,” one of the victims said.
However, optimism turned to horror when the presiding magistrate gave Lotter a suspended sentence, despite the fact that the man had a previous conviction of another sexual abuse case against him, and originally lied about that on his bail application.
“I just sat there – stunned – when I received the verdict,” the father said softly. “I mean, Carl was classified as a repeat paedophile by experts in court!”
The two victims were even more distraught. “They refused to leave the house, stating that Carl would be waiting for them.” Once again school marks dropped and the teenagers became rebellious and tense.
Good news came when the state won an appeal at the Pretoria High Court against Lotter’s sentence.
“I promise you, for the past 10 years we have been on a roller-coaster ride of emotions,” the victims’ mother says. “From the shock that day when my daughter told me what was happening to her and her sister, to anger, to disbelief that this is happening to us, to optimism that justice would prevail to yet another disappointment when it didn’t.”
She visibly shakes as she recalls more than 20 court postponements they had to endure during the past four years.
On several occasions the parents wanted to just throw in the towel for their children’s emotional sakes.
Yet it was the two daughters who showed courage beyond their years. “They surprised us with how strong they were, and they just said, ‘Daddy we have to go through with this so oom Carl can’t hurt other girls anymore,'” the father recalls. “Most of today’s children will never tell. They feel ashamed thatthis has happened to them.
They protect their abuser because he or she is part of their family.
They protect other members of their family – saving them from the pain of knowing,” a local psychologist told Lowvelder.
