Four years ago, on an April afternoon, *Kathy’s daughter uttered three words that shattered the mother of two’s world. “He raped me,” said *Lisa, then only 13 years old.
“What the hell are you saying?” Kathy, shocked, asked.
At that moment, Kathy’s world fell apart. He was her partner, *Tristan, the father of her son, *Ben. The man who had come into Lisa’s life when she was only six months old and raised her as his own. The man Lisa called “daddy”.
As Lisa screamed: “Yes, yes, Tristan raped me!” with tears running down her face and describing some of the things he had done to her, Kathy was overcome by shock. “It was as if water had just been thrown into my face. I could not move, all I could do was just stare at her,” she said.
The family made sure that the case was water-tight. Lisa was seen by different doctors and social workers before they reported the matter to the police.
After a trial that lasted four years, Tristan was found guilty at the Boksburg Magistrate’s court two months ago.
While the family is relieved that the trial is over, the abuse has had a long-lasting effect and has torn the family apart. They had to uproot themselves and move to Modimolle, Limpopo, and Lisa used to cut herself. She hates her younger brother, Ben, because when she sees him, she sees Tristan.
Lisa and Kathy always fight and don’t have a normal mother-daughter relationship because of what happened.
“I feel that she blames me for this and tries to hurt me,” a heartbroken Kathy said.
When Kathy fell pregnant with Lisa, her father wanted nothing to do with the baby.
They broke up and Kathy met Tristan when Lisa was six months old. They moved in with Tristan a year later.
However, Tristan started touching Lisa when she was two years old. He would touch her baby breasts, buttocks and vagina. When Lisa was in Grade 5, Tristan started penetrating her.
In an affidavit she made to the police, Lisa said Tristan used to make her watch porn and order her to mimic with him the positions that they were watching.
He would also tell her that she was his girlfriend, that there was nothing wrong with him sleeping with her because she was not his biological daughter and that Kathy was refusing to sleep with him.
He also threatened her, saying if she told anyone, he would tell them that she was the one who had seduced him and had wanted the sex. He was the one who told Lisa that he started touching her when she was two years old.
Lisa also revealed that Tristan would give alcohol to her.
However, Kathy said, she was not aware of what was happening because Tristan covered his trail well. Whenever they bathed together in the evening, he would get out of the bath quickly and tell Kathy to stay in the bath longer, then pour more bubble bath for her.
Kathy liked to lie in the bath and relax and it was at that moment that Tristan would take Lisa to his and Kathy’s bedroom, lock the door and rape her.
He would then insist on doing the laundry so that there was no proof of what he had done on the girl’s underwear and sheets.
But what was more disturbing, Kathy said, was that at times Tristan would drug her.
While she lay in a drug-induced sleep, Tristan would have his way with her daughter.
“I normally came home late and he would give me something to drink, put me to bed and I would suddenly fall asleep. One day, I was asking him what had happened to me the previous day because I did not feel well and he told me he had put something in my drink. Just like that,” Kathy recalled.
She also did not know where Tristan had kept the porn movies that he made Lisa watch, as she had never seen them around the house.
When Lisa testified in court, describing all the things Tristan had been doing to her over the years and demonstrating with two dolls – one male and one female – Kathy felt for her daughter.
“She was in such a state, I felt like grabbing Tristan and killing him.”
But what hurts more, Kathy said, was that Lisa’s biological father, who is a police officer, could not care less about his daughter or what had happened.
Kathy said she had learnt her lesson, had gone off men and has trust issues. “I advise mothers to open your eyes and make time for your children. When you’re busy, you don’t listen properly because you just want to get rid of them.”
Tristan is to be sentenced in July. Kathy wants him to never get out of prison. “There are a lot of people who will be hurt by him if he is released and I am scared that Ben will turn out like him.”
*Not their real names.
Source : SA news
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