Stepfather jailed for life

A NONGOMA stepfather has been convicted of and sentenced to life imprisonment in the Pietermaritzburg High Court last week for the rape and murder of his nine-year-old stepdaughter in January.

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Bongani Thokozani Dlamini, of Efefe Reserve, pleaded guilty to both charges.

The High Court heard that on the day of the incident, Dlamini returned from a funeral of one of their neighbours, when he encountered the young girl en route to a shop.

He lured her to an abandoned house where he raped her and then strangled her to death.

He dumped her body in a nearby pit toilet, from where it was retrieved a week later.

In his plea, Dlamini said he strangled the child because he feared she would report him to her mother.

He told the court that after dumping her body, he returned home and pretended as if nothing had happened.

In aggravation of sentence, Senior State Advocate Mbongeni Mthembu handed in a victim impact statement by the child’s mother.

In her statement, the mother said she was in a relationship with Dlamini for eight years and never expected him to be capable of such an act.

She said the gruesome image of her child’s body dumped in the toilet would never leave her.

KZN Director of Public Prosecutions, Advocate Elaine Zungu, welcomed the sentences.

‘ The accused had no justifiable reason to commit such an abhorrent offence. He was no doubt a father figure in the child’s life.

‘The fact that the accused pleaded guilty does not diminish his actions,’ Zungu said.

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