Warder’s torment - "she was assaulted and almost raped by another warder..."

By Heidi Bantam
Source: The Herald Online

A WOMAN warder who tried to commit suicide in front of her colleagues at Patensie prison this week has told of her traumatic fight for justice after she was assaulted and almost raped by another warder three years ago.
At Hunterscraig Psychiatric Hospital yesterday, mother-of-two divorcee Margaret Brown, 40, repeatedly broke down and sobbed as she told how her life turned into a nightmare when Humansdorp warder Mongamele Nonzube attacked her in her home on the Patensie prison grounds.
He was found guilty in the Humansdorp magistrate’s court of assault and sentenced to five years in jail. He appealed against the decision and although Mrs Brown was told this week the appeal had been turned down, he is still not in jail.
Mrs Brown has to live with the trauma of seeing him daily at work.
“I’ve had to sit with this problem for three years. I’m so sick and tired, I can’t take it anymore.
“I feel as if I was treated like the perpetrator and he the victim.
“I didn’t know I had to suffer after the law ran its course,” she said.
In 2000, Nonzube showed up at her home, attempted to rape her and viciously assaulted her.
She has since had to constantly endure seeing her attacker and reliving the memory of the attack.
She said she snapped on Monday after she called the investigating officer for an update on the case.
“He said, ‘Why? That’s confidential.’
“I told him that as the complainant I have the right to be informed. He said he gave a copy of the docket to the prison’s area manager and I should get it from him.”
She eventually managed to obtain the docket.Then, to her horror, she discovered that his appeal had been turned down almost a month ago, but he was still free.
“The date of the outcome was March 19, 2003. Monday was April 14. I thought, ‘When is he going to prison?’ ”
When she asked her area manager why the warder was not yet in jail, he said Nonzube needed to be “prepared”. “But prepared for what?” she asked.
On Tuesday she went to a security post at the prison at lunchtime and told the guard on duty that she would relieve him. He gave her his service pistol.
“I thought that if I shot myself all the suffering would come to an end. I and my kids have suffered. It was never my intention to hurt anyone.”