Following the alleged rape of a ten year old KZN girl a South African Child Rights activist says the spotlight should be on prevention.
Five years after the father of a teenager was sentenced to life imprisonment for raping her and after she gave detailed accounts of how she was raped while she had to dance naked for her father and his friends, the teenager now claimed that the accusations were false.
He father turned to the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria, in a bid to appeal his rape conviction and subsequent sentence. He called on the court to allow him to present further evidence which would “prove his innocence”.
The “new evidence” he wanted to place before the court was that of his daughter, the victim, who now claimed that she had lied all along and that it was actually her brother who had raped her.
But the court frowned upon this “new evidence” – especially in the light of the the daughter’s detailed account during her father’s trial of what he had done to her. The court also noted that the daughter’s “change of heart” occurred after she had visited her father for the first time in jail, five years after his conviction and sentence.
The father, during his trial, faced 86 counts relating to the rape and abuse of his two daughters, between 2008 and 2010. He was, however, only convicted on certain of the charges which included charges of rape and sexual assault.
It is only one of his daughters who now insist that her father is innocent
The court said it was peculiar that D (the daughter) proffered a conflicting version more than five years since the appellant’s (her father) conviction and sentence. She remained mum about her new version until her father’s appeal was launched.
While the teenager told the court that she “has decided and was ready to tell the truth”, the court noted that for years she never questioned her testimony, which she presented during the trial proceedings.
“D’s different version, five years after her father’s conviction and sentence, is highly questionable,” the court said. It agreed with the prosecution, which opposed the appeal, that the new version was unlikely to be true.
It was pointed out that she testified extensively of the abuse both she and her sister suffered. She explained how her mother was ordered by her father to sexually assault both her and her sister and she described, in detail, the first time she was raped by her father.
She explained that her brothers were ordered to throw her on her parents’ bed and thereafter her father raped her. She was traumatised and in extreme pain afterwards, she told the trial court.
It was further noted that both victims in their separate testimonies, testified of similar incidences. namely that other adults were present in their house and that they had to dance naked for them.
Both listed the music that they were required to dance to, for example “Poker Face” by Lady Gaga and then D added that it was also “Baby Chocolates” and “Kaptein”.
D testified in more detail and explained that they not only danced for these men but they also had sex with them.
The teenager told the court that she recently realised that she needed to see her dad to try and “fix things where I went wrong”. She saw him in prison for 30 minutes, where she said they both just cried.
“After the emotions subsided, we had a very good discussion, and my dad apologised to me for what he did to me and asked for forgiveness. My dad was a horrible person in my early childhood, and he would verbally abuse me and physically assault me.
“I could see that my dad was a changed person and that his mannerism and attitude towards me was pleasant and for the first time in my life I experienced love from my dad, something I did not know before,” she said.
The court, however, did not believe her new version and dismissed the appeal.
Pretoria News
zelda.venter@inl.co.za
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