An AB Xuma Primary School patroller called a pupil to the guardroom, fiddled with her vagina and wiped off her tears as she cried from pain.

This is according to an eight-year-old girl who was telling her ordeal to the South Gauteng high court - sitting in Palm Ridge magistrate's court - yesterday. She said Johannes Molefe, 58, raped her at the Soweto school that day.

Molefe stands accused of three counts of rape and 11 of sexual assault. He allegedly violated the school's pupils last year.

The girl said she felt pain when Molefe inserted his finger into her vagina.

"I cried. He said I must not cry. He wiped off my tears. I then went out [of the guardroom] to where the [school] transport was waiting for me," she said.

The girl said she had left the school late that day as she was cleaning the classroom with her classmates. She said as she walked out of the class, Molefe called her to his guardroom near the school gate.

"I was wearing school shorts and a T-shirt. He rubbed me on my thighs from where the shorts ended," she said.

The girl demonstrated to the court how Molefe fiddled with her vagina by moving her index finger up and down. The girl said she only told her mother about the incident after Molefe - known as "Mkhulu" by the kids - was arrested because she feared that her mother would interrogate Molefe, who would then threaten her.

Molefe's lawyer Lumka Qoqo asked the girl why she did not scream as Molefe sexually violated her. The girl responded by saying that Molefe had closed her mouth with his hand. "You are a tiny person and Mkhulu is big, if he had closed your mouth you wouldn't breath," said Qoqo.

Qoqo then asked the girl why her fellow passengers in the school transport did not notice that she had been violated, and the girl replied: "Because Mkhulu had wiped off my tears."

The girl's mother said she became aware that her daughter was violated after she saw the (sexual assault) reports at the school in the media.

She said she asked her daughter about the reports but she did not say anything.

However, the next day her child asked to speak to her.

The mother said she dismissed her as she was sitting with a friend. "My daughter took a chair, sat on the side and cried. I then gave her attention. I took her and put her on my lap. She then told me that Mkhulu had pushed his finger into her vagina," she said.

The trial continues.