Africa-Press – South-Africa. The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) has won an appeal to have harsher sentences imposed on two people for the rape and murder of their young cousin in Mpumalanga.
This after arguing that the sentences handed to the pair were “shockingly” low.
The DPP took the matter to the Supreme Court of Appeal after the two, a male and female, were handed sentences of 15 and 12 years respectively in 2016 after being found guilty of the rape of their 12-year-old cousin, hitting her with a spade as well as crushing her head with a rock.
They also tried to throw her body into a pit toilet but when that plan failed, buried her in a shallow grave.
The DPP said the original sentences imposed were too lenient, had induced a sense of shock and therefore ought to be set aside.
Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) judge Mahube Molemela agreed with their sentiments, saying exhibits that had been presented in court painted a horrifying picture of rape and murder that were accompanied by extreme brutality.
She said:
The SCA then upheld the DPP’s appeal.
The female cousin’s 15-year sentence was replaced with a life sentence while the 12 years originally given to the child’s male cousin were increased to 23 years.
The two committed the crime on the night of 7 December and the early hours of 8 December 2013 when the child was visiting her cousins in Kwa-Mhlanga, Mpumalanga.
The attackers and their victim were first cousins, as their mothers were sisters.
At the time, the female cousin was 21 years old and pregnant with her second child. Her first child had been born as a result of rape when she was 15.
The male cousin was 17 at the time and living with his girlfriend who was pregnant.
Both the attackers were living in the same yard that the child was visiting and where she was later attacked.
On the night of the attack, the deceased was sleeping in the same bed as the male cousin’s 12-year-old sister when she was roused from sleep by her attackers.
She was taken outside where the male cousin raped her in front of the 21-year-old before she was hit with a spade and her head crushed with a rock.
Police were called the following day when she could not be found. They followed a trail of blood which led them to a shallow grave where the child’s naked body was found.
The 21-year-old and the 17-year-old were then arrested.
Another rape
Before the trial started, both were released on a warning. However, while out on a warning, the teenager committed another rape before stabbing the victim 20 times. Miraculously, she survived the attack.
Twice, police had to rescue the teenager from an enraged community that wanted to kill him.
In handing down the new sentences on Friday, Judge Molemela was especially scathing in her remarks regarding the female cousin’s participation in the child’s brutal attack.
“As a pregnant woman carrying life, the first respondent did not think twice about snuffing life out of the deceased. Once that had been achieved, she was ready to dispose of the deceased’s body in a neighbour’s pit toilet.
“Being a woman who was once a victim of rape, [she] is someone who would ordinarily have been expected to be protective of the deceased. Instead, she fetched a child from the bedroom in which she was sleeping, took her outside and orchestrated a vicious attack against her.
“She played a leading role in the commission of what can truly be described as barbaric and despicable deeds.”
Molemela then handed the female cousin a life sentence.
Lenient sentence
When the first sentences were handed down during the trial in 2016, the male cousin’s lawyer had argued for a lenient sentence, saying he had been young and immature at the time of the crime.
That then led to him getting 12 years for murder, five for defeating the ends of justice and 10 for rape.
It was also ordered that the five and 10 years run concurrently, giving him an effective 12 years sentence.
However, Molemela said she was of the opinion that the sentences imposed on him “induce a sense of shock, are in the circumstances shockingly inappropriate, and fall to be set aside”.
She also said a clinical psychologist had argued that the youth was unlikely to be rehabilitated, posed a risk to society and fell under the classification of a serial murderer.
A probation officer who had prepared his pre-sentence report had stated that looking at his victims, there was a high risk of him committing another sexual offence against a child or a person who is mentally disabled.
All things considered, Molemela said, a lengthy custodial sentence was inevitable for him.
“It must be a sentence that removes him from society for long enough to provide him with ample opportunity to take stock of the seriousness of his offences and to take responsibility for them.
“In my view, an effective sentence of 23 years’ imprisonment would be appropriate.”
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