Stock Image: Not the actual incident

News has recently come to light revealing disturbing details of a 16-year old boy who was raped while on a school rugby tour. The incident was part of an elaborate initiation process which clearly went horribly astray, all of which was recorded on cellphones.

The incident in question took place over the weekend of 17 March, of this year. Rugby players from Edgemead High School’s first team were on a tour and had camped near Velddrift on the West Coast, where they played a match against a local school.

On Friday night at approximately 23:30 the mother of the victim received a ‘please call me’ from her son. She immediately phoned and found him to be in severe distress.

“He was hysterical and told me that the older boys wanted to shave his head… I insisted on speaking to them, but they told me I couldn’t tell them what to do, and ended the call.”

The boy has also reportedly asked his coach, Brandon Grant, for help but was told to “stand up for [himself] and be a man”. Initially the boy and a friend tried to hide but when they were later discovered by the group they were locked in rooms and had their heads shaved.

The following night their initiation continued, they were made to drink a concoction, the contents of which was not made known to them. Later in the evening they were also fed alcohol and once they had fallen asleep they were violated with several phallic objects including a broom and a banana, the acts were recorded on cellphones. The victim also had his eyebrows shaved, toothpaste squirted up his nose and had offensive images drawn on his head. According to an account from a fellow student who was also on the tour, another learner wanted to defecate on the boy but was stopped by friends.

The learner’s parents removed him from school and laid criminal charges at the Bothasig Police Station on 20 March. Since then very little has been done about the incident and police informed them on Wednesday that the perpetrators would not be prosecuted as “the boy had not been examined by a district surgeon at the time of the assault.” This was in contradiction to what the boy’s mother had been told, as she had been lead to believe that photographic evidence would be enough.

The Headmaster of Edgemead High School, Redford Lawrence, told Die Burger that the school had held an “internal disciplinary hearing” and that several boys had received temporary suspension. According to Lee Smith, the chairperson of the school’s governing body, the Western Cape Education Department (WCED) was made aware of the incident, however Paddy Attwel, spokesperson for the Department said they had no knowledge of it.

“The WCED are taking the matter very seriously and the case will be investigated,” he said in a statement.

[Source: Die Burger, News24]