A young man was arrested on Tuesday after he allegedly tried to rape a young woman looking for a job as a nanny, police said.
The woman called a number in response to a bogus job advert and spoke to a man.
Police spokesperson Warrant Officer Michael Mbewe said the 21-year-old man apparently told her she had to meet someone at the Silverton Mall in the early morning. He said she would then be taken to the house where the job vacancy was.
The woman met the man around 04:45 and they walked across the sports field of the High School Silverton.
“As they were walking, the woman tried to call the so-called prospective employer. When there was no response, she became suspicious and told the man she wanted to pull out,” Mbewe said.
“The man grabbed her and pulled a knife. He took her cellphone and told her he would kill her if she screamed.”
The man was apparently dragging the woman to the bathroom on the sports grounds when she escaped.
Silverton Neighbourhood Watch patroller Kobus Koekemoer said he was patrolling the area when he noticed a woman running towards him, waving her arms.
“I told her to get into the vehicle and she explained to me what happened to her,” Koekemoer said.
He said they drove through the streets and noticed the man running about three blocks from the scene.
“He was trying to get rid of the woman’s cellphone and handbag as he was running,” Koekemoer said. “I chased and cornered him against a fence but he rolled over the bonnet of my bakkie and ran away.”
Koekemoer said he chased the man further down the street, jumped out of the vehicle and cuffed the man.
He called the police who arrived on the scene within seconds.
“We found a set of keys on him and he told us that it belonged to his mother who was an employee at the high school,” Koekemoer said.
He said the woman, who had apparently been working at the school for the past 22 years, admitted in front of him and the headmaster that the alleged criminal was her son. He had been living on the school premises with her for the past few months.
Mbewe said the man would appear in the Pretoria Magistrate’s Court soon on charges of sexual assault. More charges were imminent.
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