A school principal WhatsApped a grade 9 girl on a Saturday night, telling her they were going to have sex.
After the 15-year-old showed Frederick Booyse’s messages to her mother, he was fired from Aurora High School, near Piketberg in the Western Cape.
The 53-year-old then lost an appeal to the education MEC and now his plea for clemency has been rejected by an arbitrator.
Gail McEwan of the Education Labour Relations Council said Booyse pleaded guilty to sexually harassing the pupil in dozens of messages sent over more than an hour but his remorse “was all about him, his future and the fact that he was unemployed”.
“He never once mentioned the impact of his behaviour on the girl, other learners or the reputation of the school,” she said.
WhatsApps between Booyse, a married father of three, and the 15-year-old began at 9.45pm on July 24 2021 with a blunt statement from the principal that she would have sex with him.
The girl testified that even though she was at home she lied in her replies and told Booyse she was with friends. But the principal insisted they meet.
At 10.26pm he told her in Afrikaans: “You will sleep with me. Is that OK?”
The girl: “I cannot, my mother would not allow that.”
Booyse: “Just for a time. Not the whole night.”
The girl: “No.”
Fifteen minutes later, as the exchanges continued, the girl said: “Sir, are you mad? You are drunk.” And at 10.50pm, after the girl told Booyse she would forward his messages to his daughter, a school WhatsApp group and her mother, the principal signed off saying: “God bless you all.”
Everyone was aware Booyse preferred stiff drinks after hours and was often drunk
— School governing body chair Bernadine Kotze
McEwan said the girl had “the courage and gumption to make up enough excuses and threats that defeated Booyse in the end”, and added: “Her mother should be proud over how her daughter handled this ghastly intrusion on her dignity and private space by a person to whom she was expected to have shown respect.
“She made every excuse she could think of at short notice to deter Booyse … but he was too focused on getting to have sex with a 15-year-old child to have noticed that she was saying this was not going to happen.”
The girl’s mother testified that her daughter was crying and trembling after the exchanges ended and that her schoolwork deteriorated over the rest of the year and she became withdrawn. She left the school at the end of grade 9 and enrolled at a school in Piketberg.
The girl broke down in tears twice while giving evidence and “bluntly refused to accept an apology offered to her by Booyse”, said McEwan.
School governing body chair Bernadine Kotze told McEwan: “Everyone was aware Booyse preferred stiff drinks after hours and was often drunk.”
The fired principal said he and two friends had drunk a bottle of brandy on the day of the offence and that he was so shocked by what he had done that he had not had a drink since.
He said his family was now living on a social grant and he begged for a job with the Western Cape education department, even as a cleaner.
A character witness for Booyse, Aurora High teacher Jackie Essien, said he had brought a “sense of calm” to the school that was now missing.
But McEwan said there was no way back for the ex-principal, and as well as dismissing his appeal she said he must never be allowed to work with children again.
Several attempts to reach Booyse on the cellphone number registered to him were unsuccessful as the phone was switched off.
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