Cape Town - A convicted rapist who admitted to the rape and assault of a six-year-old girl left in his care has been unsuccessful in his application to appeal against his life sentence in the Western Cape High Court.
The 26-year-old man was arraigned in the Paarl Regional Court on charges of rape and assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm where, according to the charge sheet, the offences were committed in May and June 2022, respectively, on the same victim.
The High Court judgment by Judge Constance Nziweni also ordered that the judgment be shared with the Department of Social Development “to investigate promptly if the child is not a child in need of care and protection” as she may be at risk.
The man – a biological father to two minor children, aged seven- years-old and five-months old – had pleaded guilty to the charges against him, but exercised his right of automatic appeal to the Western Cape High Court as he was aggrieved by the hefty sentence after the court found no compelling reasons to deviate from the minimum prescribed sentence on the charge of rape.
In his statement made to police, the convict revealed that he raped the six-year-old girl after he had bathed her in the absence of her mother, who was also his girlfriend at the time.
For the assault charge, he submitted that he had beaten the six-year-old victim with a belt over her legs after he lost his temper because she had returned home after 8pm at night.
The man had argued that the court erred in his sentence and submitted that “there was no physical violence during the commission of the rape, (his) guilty plea, the fact that he is a first time offender, that no expert evidence was presented to show that the child was going to experience long-term effects of trauma, the age of the (accused), the fact that he is a father of two very young children, time spent in custody awaiting finalisation of the trial, together with appellant’s other personal circumstances” and cumulatively constituted substantial and compelling circumstances.
In judgment, Judge Nziweni said that the convict has “possibly destroyed and created immensely a wedge between a mother and a daughter.’’
“Similarly, the impact of the abuse on the child may also affect her interactions with others as she grows older.
Clearly, the victim in this case has been dealt a horrible start to her life ... It hardly needs to be pointed out that, if a court is seized with a matter involving child abuse, it should always be mindful of the importance of the provisions of Section 150 of the Children’s Act.
“Undoubtedly, courts have a central role to play in the vindication and safeguarding of children’s rights.
“Both the trial courts and the public prosecutors have important roles to play in ensuring that abused children’s rights and welfare are protected.
“They are obliged to assume a proactive role in such matters, in order to accord children a high level of protection and to safeguard the best interests of the child, by, for example, enquiring if the matter has been brought to the attention of social services and enquiring from the public prosecutor about the living circumstances of the child, directing that the matter should be brought to the attention of social services and making follow-up orders.”
Cape Times