OUDTSHOORN – The Oudtshoorn Regional Court sentenced a 59-year-old man to an effective life sentence and 20 years’ direct imprisonment after he repeatedly raped and impregnated his own minor teenage daughter.
According to a statement by the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), the man had been convicted of the sexual violation of his 13-year-old daughter, her repeated rapes over two years as well as incest.
The victim is his biological child, born out of rape after he raped the minor’s mother when she was 16 years old. The accused was the husband of the victim’s mother’s aunt.
The accused was arrested for the rape, prosecuted and convicted, but was acquitted on appeal of his case at the high court.
Mistaken repentence
Hyron Goulding, prosecutor of Oudtshoorn Regional Court, led evidence that the 13-year-old victim grew up living with her mother and stepfather. She moved out and stayed with her father and his wife when she turned 13, visiting her mother on weekends.
“This move came about after the victim’s mother and the convicted rapist were approached by their pastor and were requested to make peace. At this reconciliation discussion, the accused apologised to the victim’s mother for raping her,” the statement read.
The accused’s wife invited the victim to stay with her and her husband, and the young victim’s mother agreed to the arrangement as she thought the rapist had repented.
Over two years, he sexually assaulted the girl by indecently touching her and raping her multiple times.
She fell pregnant and returned home to live with her mother, where she informed her aunt and mother about the rape.
A case was registered against the accused, and a doctor confirmed that she was pregnant. She told her mother that the accused impregnated her.
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Stalling tactics
The victim’s mother testified that they instructed the hospital to terminate the pregnancy.
“She expressed frustration as she felt that the justice system had failed her when the high court acquitted the accused of her rape. She felt that if the high court did not set aside the accused’s rape conviction, he would not have raped her daughter,” according to the statement.
Goulding not only successfully prosecuted the case but managed it as the accused attempted to waste the court’s time.
“Last year, he indicated his intention to plead guilty, and on the day he was supposed to tender his plea, he terminated the services of his legal aid attorney. The case was postponed for a new attorney, and on the court day, he re-hired the same legal aid attorney.”
He then proposed to enter into a plea and sentencing agreement with the state, where he tendered a guilty plea on the rape charge, claiming that the victim consented to the rape.
The state rejected his proposed plea and sentencing agreement as her version was that she did not consent to her rape.
The accused then amended his plea and sentencing agreement, and the state accepted it, but he turned it down when the state insisted that the only appropriate sentence was 25 years of direct imprisonment on the rape charge.
The matter was postponed for trial, and the state again prepared the victim, through court preparation officer Helene Lucas, to testify against the accused.
State’s ‘strong’ case
On Thursday 29 January the state was ready to proceed with the trial, and the three charges were put to the accused.
“He shocked everyone, including his attorney, when he pleaded guilty. The matter stood down, and his attorney informed the state that the accused wanted to plead guilty and admit that he indeed raped the victim, but it only happened once.”
The state rejected the watered-down guilty plea, and the defence corrected the plea wherein he admitted that the rapes happened over a period of two years and not once.
The defence attempted to negotiate its way back to the initial sentence of 25 years’ direct imprisonment that was offered during the plea and sentencing negotiations. The state rejected the request.
In aggravation of sentence, Goulding argued that the accused pleaded guilty because he realised that the state had a strong case against him and he had no other way out than to plead guilty.
The court agreed with the state and sentenced the accused to 10 years direct imprisonment for sexual violation, life imprisonment for rape and 20 years direct imprisonment for incest.
It ordered the 10 years’ direct imprisonment for sexual violation to run concurrently with the life imprisonment, but the 20 years’ direct imprisonment for incest to run separately from the life imprisonment.
The accused is effectively sentenced to life imprisonment and 20 years’ imprisonment. The court ordered his name to be entered into the National Sex Register and declared him unfit to work with children.
It also declared him unfit to possess a firearm.
