A Cape Town Regional Court has sentenced a 48-year-old man to 18 years in prison for a series of violent crimes against his common law wife, including rape, attempted murder, and repeated assaults.
Image: File
The Cape Town Regional Court this week sentenced a 48-year-old man to 18 years in prison for his relentless attacks of rape, attempted murder, repeated kidnappings, and assaults on his common law wife.
The man, who is not named to protect the woman and their two minor children from secondary victimisation, was party to a love triangle and was also convicted of malicious injury to property after he broke her boyfriend’s house windows during a jealous rage.
National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) spokesperson, Eric Ntabazalila, confirmed a court order that the particulars of the man to be included in the National Register for Sex Offenders and declared him unfit to possess a firearm.
During trial, regional court prosecutor Ruwayda Badrudeen led evidence that abuse was present from the beginning of the couple’s tumultuous relationship, but her ordeal of repeated abuse, repeated rapes, repeated attempts of murder, and threats of murder started two months after she and the children joined him in Du Noon in 2019.
“The accused and his 28-year-old wife met in the Eastern Cape in 2015, lived together, customarily married in 2019, and had two daughters. Their eldest daughter has a heart condition and the couple felt she would receive better medical care in Cape Town, which has superior health facilities.
“The accused relocated to Cape Town at the beginning of 2019; he looked for employment and sent money home for his family to join him a month later. At the time, he was renting a house in Du Noon,” said Ntabazalila.
Recalling the repeated incidents of abuse, the court heard that the first incident was when the man’s brother visited them.
He later tried to force her to drink, but she refused as they had children with them and feared the eldest daughter with a heart condition may get sick.
“Later in the evening, the drinking group heard a scream outside and found a couple fighting. The group stopped the fight, and her husband cozily consoled the strange woman. The wife felt her husband was making a fool of her and confronted him. Her husband instructed her to sit down and a few minutes later, he struck her with a bottle on the head.
“She went to Du Noon Clinic, where they removed glasses from her wound and bandaged her. Hospital staff asked her to wait for a J88 form so that she could go to the police station to open a case. She left the hospital without getting the form, as she feared the accused was a breadwinner and she would not be able to financially take care of herself and the children. He later apologised,” the court heard.
In her victim impact statement, the woman said: “I don’t know where to start, but whatever happened traumatised me a lot. I don’t see myself as a human being. My life is completely different compared to other people.
“I almost lost my life but the only thing that I thought about at that moment was my children. At some stage, I felt like I don’t deserve to be loved, even now the feeling is still there… I was being controlled and was never given a chance. I had to do whatever he wanted even if it didn’t make me happy. I felt like my life revolved around him because I depended on him to do things for me… I never came to Cape Town; he is the one who familiarised me with this place. Surely, he brought me here to bring more misery to my life.”
The court sentenced him to a cumulative 31 years' direct imprisonment but ordered some of the sentences to run concurrently.
Western Cape Director of Public Prosecutions, Adv Nicolette Bell, condemned the brutal, misogynistic behaviour of the accused towards a woman he professed to love and was supposed to protect against all odds.
Cape Times