Accuse gets life sentence for the rape of his lover’s grandchild
The Carolina Regional Court, sitting at the Eerstehoek Magistrate Court, sentenced a 49-year-old male to life imprisonment for the rape of an 11-year-old minor.
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The court heard how the accused, who is a boyfriend to the minor’s 64-year-old grandmother, repeatedly raped her between March and May 2017.
In the first incident, the suspect left the grandmother’s room and went to where the victim was sleeping with her younger brother.
The girl tried to scream but the accused gagged her mouth with his hand and raped her. According to court papers, the minor reported the matter to her grandmother on the following day, but she never took the allegations serious.
Read:Two Mpumalanga men jailed for raping minors
In May of the same year, the accused was apparently chased out of the grandmother’s bedroom for reasons unknown to the minor, and he went straight to the her bed and raped her again.
The court heard that on the same night the grandmother caught him in the act with her grandchild. The court also heard how the grandmother condemned the accused, but never reported him to the police.
The minor only sought justice in the matter, since she had learned at school that her body is supposed to be private, and that sexual offences should be reported to a confidant or a police official. According to court papers, the minor reported the offence to a local nurse, who then reported to the police, and an investigation ensued.
Both the grandmother and the accused were arrested on July 14, 2017. The grandmother was charged for failing to report a sexual offence. She is out on bail. She briefly appeared in in the Eesterhoek Magistrate’s Court on August 29.
The matter was postponed to October 3. Mpumalanga News learnt that the victim was taken from the grandmother’s place by her biological mother.