Pretoria - An Eastern Cape man received an early Christmas gift – his freedom – after two judges overturned his four life terms as well as an additional 15 years’ imprisonment.
He had been convicted on five counts of raping his daughter.
The man, who cannot be named to safeguard the identity of his daughter, had maintained his innocence from the start. But the trial magistrate ignored his version and accepted that of his daughter.
The high court, sitting in Bhisho, ordered the immediate release of the father from prison. He has served more than four years, following his October 2022 conviction on five counts of rape and subsequent sentence.
In appealing against his convictions, the father said his estranged wife and her family had prompted his daughter to falsely implicate him. The daughter testified that she was a teenager when the rapes started and it lasted about three years, during which time she was raped numerous times by her father.
The father said the “rape story” had been concocted by the aunt and his estranged spouse and that they had coached the complainant to falsely implicate him.
He said her younger half-sister, who had also testified on her behalf and claimed to have witnessed some of the rapes, was never asked by the court before giving her evidence on whether she understood what it meant to take the oath.
The complainant testified that she and her siblings were living with the appellant at the time she was raped. Sometime during 2013, while her stepmother was working night shift, she was awoken from her sleep, and this was the start of her father’s rape spree. She did not tell anyone as she was afraid of him.
She told the court the rapes had continued even after her father and stepmother had separated.
She said that at some stage, her paternal aunt had asked her father whether he was having sexual intercourse with her, but he denied it. The daughter said he had promised her that if she corroborated his version, he would not rape her again.
She forgave him and trusted his undertaking but, she said, the rapes continued. She said they sometimes happened more than 10 times over weekends. Her younger half-sister testified she saw that happening.
The father was arrested after he and his daughter had an argument and she called her aunt to tell her she was being raped.
While the regional court, which had convicted and sentenced the father, found discrepancies in the complainant’s evidence, the magistrate had found “it did not distort the picture before the court”.
The high court judges found it should have, as the court had no regard at all for the father’s version.
He testified that he and his daughter’s argument about the number of boyfriends she had, had triggered her to tell her aunt that she was raped. The court also questioned why the daughter did not report the alleged rapes earlier.
The judges said it was incumbent on the trial court to, at the very least, evaluate the reasons why the complainant reported the rapes and why there were inconsistencies in her version.
The judges said the trial court thus erred in concluding the prosecution had proved its case beyond reasonable doubt.
Pretoria News