Cops hunt in-store stalker, after shopping trip turns to horror

JOHANNESBURG police are hot on the heels of a potential paedophile.

Giant chain store Woolworths is also desperate to locate the man after he traumatised a nine-year-old girl in one of its stores.

The child and her mother went shopping at Brightwater Commons, Randburg, but the experience was ruined by a man who fondled her inside the store.

When the pair arrived at the store, the little girl went to the children's section while her mother checked the ladies' section. And that was when the man started following her around the shop.

Footage taken by CCTV cameras at the store shows the girl looking at accessories. The man passes the girl and then goes back before coolly rubbing his crotch against her back.

The terrified girl runs away and the man walks around the store looking for her.

When the man meets her again in the children's clothing section she tries to avoid him but he keeps circling her. He finally manages to grope her buttocks. She then tries to walk away but he continues to follow her.

The girl goes and looks for her mother and while they are standing at the shoe section, the man approaches them again.

Despite the mother being there, he still tries to grope her.

The girl and her mother cannot be named because the child is a minor. After leaving the store, the girl told her mother what had happened. When they went back to the store, the man had disappeared.

"Even though we did not find him, the store management was helpful. They called the police and we went through the CCTV cameras," the mother said.

"The worst thing about the video was seeing the man touch my child like that.

"My child is traumatised. After we reported the issue to the police, they sent victim support and they counselled us. They advised us that she should go to school so she can be with friends and not get depressed," the mother said.

Yesterday police confirmed they were looking for a man in his early 40s on charges of inciting, soliciting, and importuning a person for immoral purposes in a public place.

Dr Deborah Bernhardt, a forensic and counselling psychologist in Fourways, described the man's action as abnormal.

"Normally older men who opt for young children have a low self-concept and are scared of women of their age group," Bernhardt said.

She said such actions had the potential to have an adverse impact on the child's future.

"It causes distrust between the affected child and adults. It also has a psychological problem for the child because, in some instances, children think they are the cause of the problem. They blame themselves and think they might have done something to get the attacker's attention."

In a similar case, the Protea Magistrate's Court in Soweto last week postponed a sexual assault case against a 44-year-old Soweto man to January next year.

The man, Peter Setswenyane, allegedly touched the breast and buttocks of a 13-year-old girl in her Pimville home. The girl's mother said she was shocked when she received a call from the girl's teachers asking her to rush to the school.

"When I arrived, the teachers told me that the girl had told them that the man, who is known to the family, touched her private parts.

"She said the suspect only touched her and that nothing happened, and this was confirmed by the doctors at Baragwanath hospital where I had taken her for a check-up," she said.