Life sentence for neighbour who raped young KZN South Coast boy
A 58-year-old man has received a life sentence for the repeated rape of a young boy on the KZN South Coast.
Image: File
The Scottburgh Regional Court has delivered a stern message against child sexual abuse, sentencing a 58-year-old man to life imprisonment for the repeated rape of a minor boy in a shocking case of neighbourly trust exploited for heinous crimes.
The court heard agonising details of the abuse that occurred on various occasions between 2021 and 2022, starting when the complainant was just 12 years old.
Because the accused and the victim were neighbours and “well-known to each other”, the man was able to lure the young boy into a dangerous situation.
The prosecutor, Thanusha Govender, painted a grim picture of the first incident. The accused called the boy to his room, where he used extreme coercion.
The report notes that he “held a knife to the complainant's neck and forced him to smoke a mixture of cannabis and tobacco.” The boy fell asleep, only to wake up and realise he had been raped.
The immediate aftermath included a chilling attempt to ensure silence. The accused gave the victim “some money and told him to return the following day”, coupled with a deadly threat: he would “kill him if he told anyone what had happened”.
While the victim did not return immediately, the accused later raped him on two further occasions, using the same tactics of forced cannabis use and death threats to maintain his silence.
The horrific ordeal finally came to light when the complainant confided in a school social worker. This crucial intervention led the boy to the Port Shepstone Thuthuzela Care Centre (TCC) for necessary assistance.
During the trial, the victim's emotional testimony underscored the lasting damage inflicted.
The complainant stated that “the incident has traumatised him, and he is the laughing stock of the community because everyone talks about him.”
In handing down the sentence of life imprisonment for rape, the court took decisive action, declaring the man unfit to possess a firearm and ordering his name to be entered into the National Register for Sex Offenders and the Child Protection Register.
This landmark conviction follows a similar case last month in the same Scottburgh court.
A 49-year-old man was also handed a life sentence for the rape of an eight-year-old girl. In a startling display of audacity, that man actually went to the police station to open a case against the victim’s mother after she confronted him, only to be arrested for the rape. The girl's mother testified to the resulting trauma in a victim impact statement:
“I have been traumatised by this incident to the extent that I do not sleep well at night and have resorted to taking sleeping pills.”
National Prosecuting Authority regional spokesperson for KwaZulu-Natal, Natasha Ramkisson-Kara, said the NPA has expanded support services for victims.
“The NPA’s fight against sexual violence has been bolstered by the expansion of TCCs nationwide, which has grown from 55 TCCs in 2020/2021 to 66 TCCs at present,” she stated.