A 35-year-old man arrested for allegedly raping a 4-year-old girl and her mother, falsely claimed to police and his victims that he was a murder parolee, police have said.

News24 previously reported that the man visited the 28-year-old mother and her daughter at their home in Mpumalanga on the Day of Goodwill (formerly Boxing Day).

Moments after he was allowed into the house, he pulled out a knife and forced the mother and her daughter into one of the rooms where he allegedly raped both of them, police spokesperson Brigadier Leonard Hlathi said.

"Police were later alerted about the incident by one of the neighbours who became suspicious after seeing the suspect fleeing from the house."

The man was arrested on Friday while allegedly hiding in a suburb of Machadodorp.

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Hlathi said the man, while in police custody, claimed he was a murder parolee.

He told police that he had been sentenced to eight years in prison and that he had previously been sentenced for housebreaking in a separate incident.

However, this information appeared to be false.

Police have since discovered that he was not out on parole.

'Released on a warrant of liberation'

"He was arrested alongside his friend for murder in 2003, and his friend was found guilty and sentenced to eight years' imprisonment and later released on a warrant of liberation in 2008.

"The suspect was acquitted [in] the murder case in 2005, however somewhere in 2017, he was arrested for shoplifting where he was fined R100."

Hlathi added that their system did not indicate in any way that he was a parolee.

Police also found that the man used the false information to scare his victims.

The suspect made his first appearance in the Belfast Magistrate's Court on Monday where the matter was postponed to January 7, 2020 for a bail application.