Serial rapist gets 40 years in prison
A man who raped four women in the Phalaborwa region after giving them lifts, will spend twenty years behind bars.
Lucky Kgatledi Raphela (44) was sentenced in the High Court in Polokwane on Wednesday, July 19. He received a sentence of 40 years on four counts of rape with 20 years direct imprisonment. He was sentenced to ten years imprisonment on each count, two terms will run concurrently, and two terms will run consecutively.
The court heard Raphela offered his four victims a lift on four occasions between January 16, 2018, and November 7, 2021. He drove his victims, unknown to each other, to the bushes and raped them. He committed the first offence on January 16, 2018, in Selwane village. The incident was followed on September 9, 2018, in Potgieter Street, Phalaborwa with another rape, and on February 15, 2020, he raped a woman in Ngwe Park in Phalaborwa.
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The last incident was on November 7, 2021, in Mashishimale village. Raphela was arrested on October 26, 2022, following a lengthy investigation. He was linked to the crime scenes through DNA. All four cases were investigated by the Family Violence Child Protection and Sexual Offences Unit in Phalaborwa in collaboration with the investigative psychology section.
The investigating team was Cpt Beverly Mbedzi, WO Vincent Mukwevho and Sgt Oral Mhlongo. The court has also ordered that Raphela’s particulars are included in the register for sexual offenders. The provincial commissioner of police in Limpopo, Lt Gen Thembi Hadebe, praised the meticulous investigation as well as the collaborative work by all the relevant team members that resulted in the lengthy prison sentence.
