Rape victim tried to protect mom – cop

A forensic psychologist who worked closely with a little girl who was violently raped says the child tried to protect her mother from the truth.

Captain Melanie Benham said she got to know the young girl two months after she was attacked in October 2010.

Benham told trial judge Lee Bozalek that the girl had trouble communicating because of the injuries she suffered at the hands of her accused attacker Stephen “Foxy” Isaacs.

The policewoman told the court the young girl understood the questions people asked but was unable to answer.

“She knew what she wanted to say but she couldn’t communicate it and she would get very frustrated when we didn’t understand her,” said Benham.

Benham said she used dolls to communicate with the girl and the child sometimes used single word answers to her questions.

“She’d act out her answers using the dolls. She used the dolls to explain and show us what happened to her,” Benham told the court.

“She could tell the difference between boys and girls – for penis she said ‘pieletjie’ and vagina was ‘koekie’.”

Benham added the victim could remember everything that happened to her but wouldn’t talk about it in front of her mother .

“I had to ask her mother to leave the room before she would talk about what happened to her,” she said.

*This article was published in the Daily Voice