{"id":71448,"date":"2017-08-29T15:51:37","date_gmt":"2017-08-29T13:51:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mobserver.co.za\/?p=71448"},"modified":"2017-08-30T18:31:52","modified_gmt":"2017-08-30T16:31:52","slug":"update-rape-accused-pastor-bail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/news-headlines\/2017\/08\/29\/update-rape-accused-pastor-bail\/","title":{"rendered":"Update: Rape accused pastor out on bail"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This follows the arrest of a well-known pastor last week, who has been accused of raping his step-daughter.<\/p>\n<p>He cannot be identified to protect the identity of the girl.<\/p>\n<p>According to information, the pastor runs a church which is attended by influential community members and a number of high ranking policemen.<\/p>\n<p>It is alleged that the pastor raped the girl multiple times before she finally reported the incident at the Mhluzi Police Station.<\/p>\n<p>Also read: <a href=\"http:\/\/mobserver.co.za\/70945\/local-pastor-arrested-raping-child\/\" target=\"_blank\">Local Pastor arrested for raping child<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Police are treating the case with a lot of sensitivity as the pastor has been previously accused of rape &#8211; but those cases were dropped against him.<\/p>\n<p>He was arrested last week and a few days later was granted bail &#8211; much to the annoyance and anger from community members who insist that the pastor must face the full might of the law.<\/p>\n<p>They were told that the pastor would appear in court again on Tuesday, so they organised a few members to express their dissent outside the court.<\/p>\n<p>According to the Middelburg SAPS, the case has been postponed to a later date in September.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A small group of community members from Mhluzi gathered outside the Middelburg Magistrate Court on Tuesday morning, holding up placards denouncing rape and calling for justice against perpetra-tors who commit violence against women.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2844,"featured_media":71449,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"hasGravity":false,"cxt_article_byline":"Yaseen Gaffar","cxt_disable_google_ads":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2885,7,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-71448","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-crime-news","category-local-news","category-news-headlines"],"category_labels":{"Category":"News","SubCategory":"Crime News"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71448","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2844"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71448"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71448\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71449"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}