A 41-year-old father sentenced to two life terms for raping his daughter and niece told the Mthatha regional court that the daughter is blaming him after he caught her with a man.
The perpetrator, who cannot be identified to protect the victims, committed the crime between 2013 and 2014 while living in a rented one-room flat in Mandela Park near Mthatha with his wife and nine-year-old daughter.
The family’s sleeping arrangements were demonstrated in court on Tuesday, with the father and mother sleeping on the bed and the girl sleeping on the floor.
However, when the mother left for work in the morning, the unemployed father would call the daughter into his bed and rape her, threatening to kill her and her mother if she told anyone about the rapes.
In 2020, his then-13-year-old niece came to visit, and one night, after his spouse had passed out from drinking, he proceeded to join the children on the floor and forced them to touch each other’s breasts and his private parts.
Girls forced to watch the rapes
He raped the girls, making them watch as he raped them.
The perpetrator went on to threaten the niece that he would kill their entire family if she told anyone about the rape.
Magistrate Shylock Ndengezi stated that when the man’s daughter matriculated and attended university in 2023, she informed her mother about what had happened to her, and they immediately fled the residence they shared with the man.
They went into hiding before filing a police report. The suspect was apprehended when the mother and daughter left the residence.
Pitiful witness
Ndengezi described the convicted rapist as a pitiful witness who denied knowing anything but his name.
He sentenced him to two life sentences with an additional 20 years after convicting him on two charges of rape and two counts of sexual assault.
Barry Madolo, the director of public prosecutions in the Eastern Cape, said justice must be served for the young women who fell prey to someone who was supposed to protect them.
