Roland Routh
WINDHOEK – Showing his victims pornographic videos was just one of the ways a former cleaner and acting hostel father at Karundu Primary School in Otjiwarongo used to ensnare his victims into his fantasies, Windhoek High Court Judge Alfred Siboleka was told yesterday.
One of the lucky ones who managed to get away from Merven Nguyapeua, 48, yesterday told the judge that Nguyapeua sent a child to fetch him while he was playing soccer with friends during the beginning of 2016. “When I arrived at the room where teachers normally sleep when they are on duty, I found the father there,” the boy, who may not be identified as he is an alleged victim of sexual assault, told the court.
According to him, he then said, “Father you sent for me and here I am,” after which Nguyapeua instructed the boy who went to fetch him to leave the room. “Father then approached me and took his cellphone out of his pocket, switched it on and showed a video of a man and women having sexual intercourse,” the boy who was 16 years old at the time said through an Otjiherero interpreter.
“Initially I looked at it, but then I looked away and he asked me are you a moffie (a derogatory word for a male regarded as being unmanly) and said I must come and watch the video with him,” the boy narrated.
“I told him I’m not a homosexual, [and] that I do not want to look at such images and just want to get out of the room.”
By that time, the boy said, Nguyapeua had already started to undress and had his pants and underpants halfway down his legs.
“I went out through the door which fortunately was not locked and went back to the soccer field where I told my roommate what happened,” he added. According to the boy, he was terrified and could not understand how a person that was like a father to him and the other children at the school could do such a thing. “I could not understand how he could undress himself in front of me, he being like a father to us,” he testified in court.
After a few weeks, his younger brother confided in him that Nguyapeua had also showed him the video and had abused him and he told him to stay away from the accused.
He, however, saw his brother talk to a teacher a few days later, and he also revealed what had happened to him, the boy said.
During cross-examination, Milton Engelbrecht who represents Nguyapeua on instructions of legal aid tried his utmost to unsettle the boy, but he stuck to his guns even when Engelbrecht exposed some contradictions between his oral testimony and his written statement.
During cross-examination, Engelbrecht told the boy that Nguyapeua denies ever showing him a video or that he even had such a video on his phone.
According to Engelbrecht, his client says he does not even know how to operate apps on the phone and how to upload and show videos.
During his plea, Nguyapeua issued a blank denial of all the allegations and said he never touched any of the boys in question.
He faces 32 counts of rape, or 27 alternative counts of having sexual intercourse with a child below the age of 16 years.
According to the State, he forced at least 10 boys between the ages of 13 and 15 years to sodomise him after he stimulated their private parts.
The prosecution is represented by Deputy Prosecutor General Seredine Jacobs.
The case continues on Monday next week and Nguyapeua remains in custody at the Windhoek Correctional Facility’s section for trial-awaiting prisoners.