Retired principal admits to sex with pupil, 30 years later

A retired headmaster has admitted sexually assaulting two schoolboys more than 30 years ago, after one of them confronted him in an e-mail.

“What I did was sickening and your anger and sadness is well directed,” Richard Second, 61, told the man, now an architect, who was a 12-year-old boarder when the alleged assault happened.

Police are now investigating a case of indecent assault and sodomy against Second, who lives in Mossel Bay after retiring in February as principal of Queen’s College Boys’ Primary School in Queenstown, Eastern Cape.

His alleged offences were committed when he was an art teacher at Dale College Boys’ Primary in King William’s Town 32 years ago. “You came to my bed that one night and then took me to your room and sexually violated and raped me,” said Second’s former pupil, who now lives in the US.

Second replied: “I acknowledge my crime. I must face the consequences of my actions and will be prepared to do that.” 

The victim, who had until recently believed that Second had died, has now laid a charge with police.

Responding to the victim in an e-mail, Second wrote: “What I did was sickening and your anger and sadness is well directed. I acknowledge my crime. I must face the consequences of my actions and will be prepared to do that.”

He admitted sexually abusing another pupil who was living in another hostel, saying “the relationship was more intense”.

Second, a father of two, could be among the first alleged sex offenders in the country to be prosecuted for a sexual assault that took place several decades ago after the Constitutional Court ruled in June that sexual assault offences would no longer prescribe (become unenforceable) after 20 years.

Read the full story in the Sunday Times.