Pervert teacher lashed for abusing 18 girls

A Maun Primary teacher School who was convicted of sexually molesting 18 students has been sentenced to three years imprisonment and 18 lashes of cane.

The 38-year-old, standard three and four teacher, Benson Modibedi, was last week pronounced guilty of indecently assaulting 18 children all under the age of 12 by the Maun Magistrate court.

When delivering sentence in a parked court which had the convict and victims' parents and teachers from various schools, Magistrate Clifford Foroma said that the teacher abused his power and authority he had over the children.

He said that the relationship between a teacher and a student should be treated with integrity. "Teachers should be trustworthy and be people of high morals," said Foroma before dismissing delivering the three years sentence on each count.

However the counts are going to run concurrently but the convicted teacher will have to take all the 18 strokes.

The serial sexual predator was initially charged with 23 counts of indecent assault but five of the charges fell off after the state failed to locate the alleged victims.

During judgment deliver last week, Foroma noted that the Mochudi born sex predator had devised a systematic way of luring the little girls either to the storeroom or to his house to molest them.

Modibedi used a storeroom to sexually abuse many of the schoolgirls. "There was a time you threatened to administer 10 lashes of the cane to all students who failed a test but after some of them asked not to be caned because they had sores on their buttocks, you ordered them to the storeroom where you asked them to undress so you could check whether they indeed had those sores," said the Magistrate last week.

He said that once in the storeroom with one of the victims, the perverted teacher then knelt down to look at her v*gina, the court was told."When she explained that the sore was on the buttocks, you told her that you were checking "something" since she was your future wife," Magistrate Foroma said.

On another day the notorious teacher is said to have ordered two of his pupils to go and cook at his house.

While they were cooking he summoned one of them to the bedroom where he put his hand under the girl's dress and started fondling her breasts and v*gina until she bolted out.

Modibedi is said to have later pleaded with the girl not to tell her mother what happened because she was his wife."My wife, do not tell your mother," court documents report Modibedi to have said to the girl.

The indecent assault incident are said to have continued happening until the victims alerted the Deputy School head who conducted oral interviews before calling the police.

One of the victims' parents who spoke on condition of anonymity to protect her child said that though the sentence is not what she had expected, she is relieved that the Modibedi will be locked away. "It has been hard for us and we used to see him going around freely. We didn't know whether he was done or was going to pounce on our children."

She however wished him the best rehabilitation in jail. "I hope he learns something in prison and comes out a better person," said the mother as she joined a group of other people outside court.