Model’s mom takes stand in rape trial

A mother testified that she took a model boss’ marriage proposal as a joke until she learnt that he had allegedly assaulted her daughter.

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Johannesburg – The mother of a young woman told a Johannesburg court on Wednesday that she took the marriage proposal from model agency boss Dawie De Villiers to her daughter as a joke, until she heard what he allegedly did to her daughter.

Responding to questioning from De Villers’s defence advocate, Jacques Pienaar, the woman told the High Court sitting in the Palm Ridge Magistrate’s Court: “At first I took it as a joke but after I heard about the incident I didn’t take it as a joke.

“If you were sexually molested at five years old, you would understand why I wanted to protect my daughter.”

The woman told the court that she had been molested as a child and had always told her daughter to never keep such secrets and that she, as her mother, would never be angry at her.

Her daughter had earlier testified how De Villiers had kissed her and put his hands up her dress.

State Prosecutor Arveena Persad then asked the woman whether her daughter mentioned anything that had happened with De Villiers.

“She came to me one day and said Dawie pulled her into the bed and tried to put his hand in her dress and the maid walked inside,” she said.

The mother also told the court how she had first met De Villiers at a boot camp because her daughter was a model.

Persad then asked the woman what the agreement was with De Villiers.

“He said we had to pay certain amounts for photo shoots and calenders,” she replied.

“I can’t remember the exact amount, but I think plus minus R4 000,” she said.

Asked by Persad whether she had paid De Villiers, the woman said: “Yes I did, I paid it cash. He never gave me a receipt and I told my daughter to ask for it but every time he had an excuse.”

The woman said De Villiers kept telling them that the calendar was at the printers and it was still coming.

“I told him that I wanted the calender or the money and he said ‘no, we must wait because it’s still printing’,” she said.

Pienaar asked the mother whether she was at Mug & Bean for a meeting where De Villiers had promised she would receive the calendar and the photographs.

“Yes,” she said.

However, Pienaar told the woman that De Villiers would say that the meeting was in fact at his house and not at Mug & Bean.

The woman was insistent that she had remembered correctly and said that De Villiers had shown them pictures on his laptop of the modelling shoot.

Pienaar put it to the woman that De Villiers would testify that the pictures were on a desk top and not a laptop.

“He did have pictures on his computer at home,” she said.

Pienaar told the woman that the pictures were still there but De Villiers had no access to them because all his equipment had been confiscated after he got arrested.

“Why did it take so long? My ex-husband works for the police and it doesn’t take so long for them to get pictures. I have also worked for a photography place and it never took so long,” she said.

De Villiers, the founder of Modelling South Africa, is accused of 38 counts, including rape, sexual assault, indecent assault,sexual grooming, possession and accessing of child pornography as well as fraud and theft. The charges date back to 2010.

The matter continues on Thursday.

African News Agency

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