A Durban man accused of rape and indecent assault has been cleared of all charges after meeting the women who had accused him of the crimes.
|||Durban - A Durban man accused of rape and indecent assault was cleared of all charges this week after he met the two women who had accused him of the crimes.
He appeared briefly in the Durban Regional Court on Wednesday where the court heard that the matter had been resolved during an alternative dispute resolution meeting and the charges against him were withdrawn.
Asked to comment on his feelings on the outcome of the case, the man would only say: “It is too painful”.
The women were not in court. They had alleged that the man – a former deputy school principal, now 58 – assaulted them in the early 1990s, when they were still minors.
He appeared before a magistrate on Monday and, in an unusual turn of events, the case was referred to the alternative dispute resolution meeting. Later that day the accused met the complainants who were given the opportunity to speak to him about how his alleged crimes had affected them and he got the chance to apologise.
There was a confidentiality agreement about the outcome. - The Mercury