By: Natasha Archary
Thabo Bester’s history of abuse has been revisited this week after a past interview with the “Facebook rapist resurfaced.
The fugitive who is now on the run after escaping from the Mangaung Correctional Centre in May 2022, previously spoke about how he was raped as a child.
During his trial in 2012, Bester who was convicted for murder and rape, shared how he was sexually abused as a child and later in life too.
Raped as a child
Bester who was in his 20s when he was sentenced to life, rehashed how he was raped several times while he was living with his grandmother as a child.
The Facebook rapist claimed that a man who was seeing his alcoholic grandmother used to rape him.
“My grandmother’s friend hurt me when he raped me. I was still young, a child. I had to have an operation to repair the damage to my rectum.”
Thabo Bester shared during his trial in 2012
Bester said he had never seen his mother and when life at home with his grandmother became unbearable, he left to go live with his friends in an informal settlement.
It was here that the youngster met a man who promised to take care of him. Instead when Bester went to live with the man, he was locked inside the house for days and raped.
The escaped convict claimed that he tried telling his grandmother that he was being raped but she wouldn’t hear of it and shut him down.
Gang-raped in prison
Bester’s history of abuse is what, according to the wanted criminal, what pushed him into a life of crime.
Using multiple aliases, Bester was charged for fraud in 2009 and sentenced to either 6-months in prison or R1 500 fine.
Being unable to afford the fine, Bester spent time in prison and said he was then gang-raped on countless occasions.
Whether he had concocted the story of abuse to get a less harsh sentence or not, the court still decided that the man who robbed and stabbed one of his victims to death did not deserve leniency.
Thabo Bester faked his death in May 2022 and escaped from prison, to apparently live a life of luxury with Dr Nandipha Magudumana.
The pair have still not been located by police, after the doctor abandoned her Hyde Park mansion last week.
Also read: DCS suspends officials on duty the night Thabo Bester escaped, but is it too little too late?
