The five pupils accused of gang-raping a 15-year-old schoolgirl have been granted bail after two months in custody.
|||Durban - The five pupils accused of gang-raping a 15-year-old schoolgirl have been granted bail after two months in custody. The police are still to recover video evidence.
The accused, aged between 19 and 21, who were initially denied bail last month, brought another bail application based on new facts.
In handing down her judgment on Thursday, Durban magistrate, Bonny Ngcobo, said the State was relying on video footage reportedly depicting 10 pupils taking part in group sex with the schoolgirl.
However, because the video footage had not been retrieved from a recovered cellphone yet and the State was unable to say if it could be retrieved, she felt exceptional circumstances existed warranting bail.
Ten pupils were arrested in February after teachers at the school, south of Durban, became aware of the video and reported the matter to police.
The five older pupils had applied for bail last month, while the other five pupils, who are all minors, were released into their parents’ custody.
The names of the pupils and the school are being withheld to protect the identity of the schoolgirl.
The State did not oppose bail on both occasions.
The Daily News was not allowed to sit in during the second bail application, which began earlier this week, on the grounds that the minors were now joined to the case.
However, the media were granted permission to sit in on the bail decision on Thursday with the undertaking that the accused and the schoolgirl not be identified.
The alleged rape apparently took place on January 22.
During the first bail application, the investigating officer, Constable Prenolan Naidoo, said the rape had not been reported immediately.
He also said the complaint had been made when the video had been circulated and seen by pupils and teachers at the school.
The pupils were arrested on January 29.
Naidoo had confirmed a cellphone was recovered but there was only an eight-second video on it, which did not support the schoolgirl’s allegation.
A second video was deleted, but Naidoo had said police were attempting to recover it.
The defence had argued at the time that the pupils were losing out on school time.
These pupils have now missed the first school term.
Three of the pupils are in matric and the other two are in Grade 11.
The new facts brought before the court were: the unavailability of the video footage, which was supposed to be retrieved in a month; and prejudice because the minors were released into their parents’ custody while the others, who were slightly older, were in jail for two months.
Ngcobo initially denied the five pupils bail as she felt they had not satisfied all the criteria to warrant their release.
On Thursday, she said the State’s case had been compromised because it was relying heavily on the video footage which it could not confirm or deny could be retrieved.
The five were granted R3 000 bail each and all 10 pupils are expected back in court in May.
Daily News
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