Admittedly i'm not super educated on the concept of apartheid and i'm not familiar with this text but to me it looks like he would have done it because he thought the punishment would be lesser on himself if he owned up to it, but that's the best i've got. good luck!!
Laura judges Rita by looks instead of actually finding out by asking. Never judge a book by its cover as they say. Also Laura focused more on Rita than herself causing herself to fall behind. Hope it helped.
