characters > cecily singer

Cecily Singer’s story

"I think that the film has brought a woman back to life."

• Before the film
• Cecily's response to Laura's attack
• Cecily meets Cathy - March 1989
• Cecily apologises - November 2002
• 12 months after the film - November 2003

Before the film

Cecily Singer was Laura Henkel's friend and neighbour in Hope Road, Johannesburg. They shared many ups and downs together as friends.

"I didn’t always agree with her. We used to have lots of arguments. She was intense. She was talented. I was very fond of her. She used to - she used to get on my nerves often, but I loved her."

Cecily's response to Laura's attack

Cecily was the first person to whom Laura turned when she was sexually assaulted on 23 December 1988.

Cecily recalled, "In the middle of the night I got woken up with the doorbell ringing and went to the door and Laura was standing on my stoep [verandah] with absolutely nothing on and her face covered with blood.

"Her face was like a parody of what it had been and I’m - I’m talking about the face because that’s the physical outside. If the face was like that, what happened to her soul?"

Cecily took Laura to the hospital and called Laura's family, including her daughter Cathy in Australia.

When they returned from the hospital, Cecily feared going into the house. "I don’t go into the house - I didn’t want to go near the house [at the time]. It was - it was like the scene of a - of the most unspeakable horror."

Cecily meets Cathy - March 1989

When Cathy first arrived in South Africa after her mother's attack, the first person she visited was Cecily. She found Cecily grappling with the rising incidence of sexual assault in South Africa - and how it had touched her personally.

"Does it reflect the values of the guardians of our society, that they didn’t find the child [Laura's attacker]? I actually - I don’t know. Was it a whitey thing? Was it a policeman protecting a white child that could have been his son?

"Laura showed me a picture from the Highlands Boys High School magazine that the police [or] somebody had given her, and she was asked to identify [the attacker], and she identified what looked like one young man, and of course it’s someone that I happen to know.

"He was at school with my children - the same age as my children. But apparently, it turned out not to be him."

This upset Laura, who said, "When I showed Cecily the photo and pointed to the boy, she actually said to my face that I must be mistaken because he looked such a nice boy, and she knew him. People don’t realize how devastating it is to be disbelieved when you are so adamant, as I was, about my attacker. "

Cecily apologises - November 2002

Fourteen years after Laura's attack, her daughter Cathy returned to Johannesburg to find justice for her mother. After months of small gains and major setbacks, Cathy was nearing the end of her visit and wanted to get home before Christmas. But there were still some things she wanted to resolve, so she returned to Hope Road to visit Cecily and to explain that a big part of Laura's trauma was the result of not being believed by her friends.

Cecily apologised and admited that she’d dismissed Laura’s identification of the suspect as wrong, because she knew the boy.

She - like many others - was deceived by the stereotype of a rapist.

"He was such a nice boy - such a nice boy. Nice boys don’t do that."

12 months after the film - November 2003

"My not believing her must have robbed her of self-belief and just added to her lack of faith in people, and it must have been a terrible thing for her. But I hope I played a better part in her life than I did in her film."

Find out more...

 Mini-doc transcript - Cecily's story