Embattled ActionSA politician Abel Tau is set to appear in the Pretoria magistrate’s court in March next year after the National Prosecuting Authority decided to formally charge him with attempted rape.
As more details of the alleged attempted rape started to emerge this week, Gauteng police spokesperson Lt-Col Mavela Masondo on Friday confirmed that “a case of sexual assault had been opened at Akasia Police Station in September 2022. The matter was escalated to the Family Violence, Child Protection and Sexual Offences Unit for further investigation.
“A warning statement was obtained from the suspect and witnesses’ statements were also obtained. The docket was then taken to a senior public prosecutor for a decision. The court has since issued summons for the suspect to appear before the Pretoria North magistrate’s court in March 2023.”
Tau, who is ActionSA Gauteng provincial secretary and a member of the mayoral committee (MMC) for human settlements in the city of Tshwane, has since been suspended by his own party and the city of Tshwane after this newspaper’s revelations of how he allegedly attempted to rape his friend’s wife. A case was opened at Akasia police station in Pretoria on September 16.
Sunday World this week saw an affidavit deposed by the 39-year-old complainant in which she relates in detail the events of September 9 and 10 when the alleged incident took place. The incident allegedly happened at the house of the 44-year-old ActionSA politician in the affluent suburb of Magaliesberg country estate, Amandasig in Akasia, north of Pretoria.
The woman is the wife of Tau’s childhood friend who also happens to work in Tau’s office in the city of Tshwane.
Sunday World has also this week seen WhatsApp messages exchanged between Tau and the woman after the alleged incident. In one of the WhatsApp messages Tau had sent to the complainant on September 10, the suspended MMC tersely said: “My apologies.”
However, in her reply, the woman made no secret of her intention to press charges as she responded to him by saying the following: “Hello, I have made a decision to open a case of attempted rape against you. What you did to me this morning was pure evil and you know it. I sitting (sic) with my husband not knowing how to tell him. Your wife takes me as one of her closest friends. I cannot keep up the pretense. So, SAPS will contact you.”
In the affidavit, the woman says: “On Friday, 2022/09/09 at about 21:45, I checked on my husband [Tau’s friend] cause it was late but due to the state he was, he requested that they will arrange Uber for me to come and drive him since he was under intoxication. On arrival I found that it was sort of a party and my husband was drunk in a way that he couldn’t even walk, so we tried to take him to the car until his boss Mr Abel Tau suggested that we sleep at their guest bedroom and we took my husband there and he slept …”
The complainant said that before she could join her husband in the bedroom where he was sleeping, she asked Tau why he had given her husband so much alcohol. She tried to wake her husband up in the early hours of Saturday morning.
“I didn’t succeed … I waited patiently for him to wake up. I heard a knock on the bedroom we slept at and went an open (sic) to only find Mr Abel and he requested that he wanted to talk to me. I went outside and I apologized on how I have spoken to him, and Mr Abel said that we can go speak upstairs at their balcony,” reads the complainant’s statement.
“He started asking me silly questions like, ‘what do you think of me?’ and further said that he likes me since long time ago. I then told him that I don’t think of anything of him beside being my husband’s boss and friend. I told him that he must stop with his question I need to go and check up on my husband.
“As I was going out, he pushed me around the corner trying to kiss me, I then blocked my mouth while saying stop it.
“He continued trying to kiss me, I then started shouting for help, then we fought until he managed to push me to their [marital] bed and put his leg on top of my chest while trying to kiss me. I screamed, then he grabbed my blue leggings trying to undress me, and I fought … until I shouted, ‘you are a rapist’ and he stopped as if he was scared …” reads the affidavit.
She said that when they eventually arrived at their house, she told her husband about what happened while he was still sleeping. She also revealed how she sent a text message to Tau’s wife, informing her about what her husband did. She later made a direct voice call to
further explain the story to the politicians’ wife.
In his sworn statement, Tau contends that the complainant arrived at his house at 11pm before his friend started to act completely drunk, even falling to the ground.
“Based on the state of intoxication, I offered him a place to sleep. We had loadshedding at 24h00, which meant that everyone had to go to bed. At 03:00 am Saturday the 10th, my wife left for work …
“At around 05:15, I went down to fetch my laptop because I wanted to charge my phone with it. When I was collecting it, Mrs XXX who was sleeping in the bedroom near our dining room exclaimed in a loud voice. I responded to say, ‘it’s me”, trying to say there was no intruder in the house.
“She then came out of her room to talk to me …”
Tau contends that they had a chat on the balcony before they later went back inside. “I was thinking that we are done talking and she will go back to her man in bed. Mrs XXX stopped at the exit door as though there was something she wanted to say. She said to me that she doesn’t like the fact that I’m too soft”.
The MMC said that at that point he walked closer to the complainant trying to understand what she was on about.
“She came on and started kissing me. While I was still shocked, she pushed me onto my bed, still in full kissing mode. While kissing on my bed she said no, and we both stopped.”
Tau said the complainant asked him to bring her cellphone which had fallen on the bed. “I sent her a text immediately that reads ‘My apologies.’ I did this because I thought I might have led her on … We had another cordial lengthy talk to a point that we agreed that what happened should never have happened.
“We also agreed that we will not tell because our partners will be disappointed …” said Tau in a statement on October 14.
He said he would clear his name and return to work. “This whole thing was orchestrated by the husband of the complainant, even though I help him a lot in his life. I helped him financially to get his driver’s licence and his first car. Even after he had lost his house, I was there for him as I took his belongings back to Soshanguve. On that Friday of the alleged incident, he told me that he didn’t have money, and I gave him R2 000. Prior to that I gave him R500 as he said that he didn’t have money. That guy lived off me and I am not even bitter about this whole thing.”
However, the woman’s husband this week said that he suspected the politician “spiked” his drink so that “I can pass out with the intention of sleeping with my wife”.
“That day Tau was mixing drinks in his bar and gave me shooters. I only saw my wife when she arrived at the house and that was it. I passed out. I felt betrayed and knowing him from childhood makes me angrier,” said the complainant’s husband.
He also said that he was loyal to Tau but what he did was dirty.
“Abel used to send me to do his errands, and I had no problem, but this thing he did to me has really destroyed me. He needs to get punished for what he did,” he said.
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