A grade 4 teacher who reported a colleague for alleged sexual assaults on 11 girls in her class, was told by a hitman that he had been paid R5,000 to kill her but “hadn’t the heart” to do so.
Teacher Nolitha Palaza testified about the conversation at a disciplinary inquiry which found her former colleague guilty of eight charges of sexually assaulting girls aged 10 and 11, and fired him.
The inquiry went ahead in the Plettenberg Bay maths teacher’s absence, after a Western Cape education department official said he was believed to have fled to Cape Town. The police were looking for him in connection with the alleged sexual assaults and the murder plot.
Education Labour Relations Council arbitrator Alta Reynolds, who said she was satisfied he had been properly notified about the hearing, heard evidence from eight Phakamisani Primary pupils.
They testified the teacher, who used a wheelchair, hugged and kissed them and touched, brushed against or held other parts of their bodies such as their thighs and buttocks.
Two girls said he also touched their breasts and private parts, and one testified that he said he would take her on “honeymoon” to a hotel in Cape Town.
In July last year, a week after the start of the third term, girls in Palaza’s class of 42 children told her the assaults took place in the first two terms, said inquiry chair Alta Reynolds.
“They had suppressed their feelings ... and were hoping to stop what he was doing, hence they kept quiet,” she said in her finding.
It was only when he allegedly continued the assaults in the third term that they decided to speak to Palaza, and the teacher reported the allegations to acting principal Sibini Nkebe.
When she asked the pupils why they were only deciding to say this now, because it seemed to have been happening over a long time, they responded that they were scared, and it was not only the two of them.
— Education Labour Relations Council arbitrator Alta Reynolds,
He was summoned to a meeting of the school management, where he said he was “showing love” to the girls when he hugged and kissed them, said Nkebe. Head of maths Noma-India Hans said the teacher refused to apologise for giving them the love they did not get at home.
The teacher was suspended, and Palaza testified that when he left he was overheard saying he was “going to show Ms Palaza”. Then, on November 4, she received a call from a man claiming the teacher had paid him to kill her and another colleague.
The caller, who gave his name and said he was in prison in Knysna, told Palaza he was supposed to have carried out the hits the previous week but “did not have the heart to do it”, she said.
Palaza and her colleague reported the call to the police and accompanied officers to the teacher’s rented home, where he denied commissioning the hits. But when police spoke to the prisoner, he repeated his story and a case was opened, she said.
“The SA Police Service reported that he had since left that address and could not locate him,” said Reynolds in her summary of Palaza’s evidence. “She was very scared about this threat on her life” and asked during her tearful testimony for a transfer to the Eastern Cape “before it was too late”.
When the pupils broke their silence, Hans said two of them explained how he routinely greeted girls by saying “take five” then interlocking his fingers with theirs, tickling their palms and hugging and kissing them.
They said the assaults began in the computer lab, when he would arrive next to them in his wheelchair, put his hands between their legs and call them “babes”.
“When she asked the pupils why they were only deciding to say this now, because it seemed to have been happening over a long time, they responded that they were scared, and it was not only the two of them,” said Reynolds.
Hans then asked the whole class to raise a hand if they had been assaulted, and 11 girls did so. The boys told her the teacher greeted them with a “hola” and a fist bump, but no hugging or kissing.
Reynolds said she was impressed by the eight girls’ “credible and consistent” evidence. “They were open and not reticent to talk about sensitive issues,” she said.
“They were requested to demonstrate with the intermediary how he touched, held and kissed them. They readily complied ... with some also demonstrating how they resisted these advances and asked him to cease what he was doing.”
Firing the teacher, she said: “He can no longer be entrusted with the emotional and physical safety and welfare of, in particular, female pupils in his custody.”
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.