A man who raped his girlfriend’s 12-year-old niece was sentenced by the Atteridgeville magistrate’s court in Pretoria to 22 years behind bars on Thursday.
The court ordered that the 29-year-old rapist from Sulsville in Atteridgeville be added on the national register for sexual offenders and declared him unfit to possess a firearm.
“The court ordered that his name be added to the National Register of Sexual Offenders and declared him unfit to possess a firearm. This is after he was convicted, by Magistrate Allen Cowan, on 25 May 2022,” said Gauteng National Prosecting Authority (NPA) spokesperson Lumka Mahanjana.
“At the time of the incident, the child was staying with her grandmother in Saulsville in the main house while Mr X, who at the time was in a relationship with the victim’s aunt, stayed in the back rooms within the same yard.”
Mahanjana said in June 2019, when the child was closing the gate in the evening, the accused dragged her to the outside toilet and raped her.
“In the morning, the child reported the matter to the grandmother, who told her to go to the clinic and school. When the minor got to school, she told her friend what had happened. The friend, together with the victim, went back to the grandmother after school and told her what the victim had shared with her, but the grandmother chased the friend away,” she said.
“Two weeks later, when the victim was washing dishes in the kitchen, the man came and sexually assaulted the child again.”
Mahanjana said, when the 12-year-old child was reunited with her mother in December 2019 during the school holidays, her mother noticed her change in behaviour. When she asked, the child informed her about what happened to her.
“The mother reported the matter to the police. The man was arrested on January 8, 2020and has been in custody since after the NPA successfully opposed bail,” she said.