RUSTENBURG HERALD - RUSTENBURG - The Provincial Police Commissioner, Lieutenant General Sello Kwena, welcomed two sentences handed down this week after thorough investigations done by two Family Violence Child Protection and Sexual Offences (FCS) Unit investigators.
In the first case, reported on Thursday, 19 September 2019 in Tlhabane, a 10-year-old girl, wrote a note that was found by her aunt in between her school books.
In the note she had written that her uncle (50 years old) had raped her at the age of seven during the school holidays in 2016.
After finding the note, the aunt informed the child's mother. Subsequently, the mother spoke to her child who admitted that what she wrote in the note was true. As a result, the South African Police Service (SAPS) was informed, and the child was taken for medical treatment that confirmed the rape.
The suspect was traced and arrested two days later. He appeared before the Tlhabane Magistrates’ Court for the first time on 23 September 2019, and was found guilty on Wednesday, 30 October 2024. The now 58-year-old convict was sentenced to 26 years' imprisonment by the Bafokeng Regional Court in Tlhabane.
In a second unrelated case, reported at Dubai Section in Lethabong Gardens outside Rustenburg on Thursday, 22 December 2022, the court heard evidence that a 12-year-old girl went to her 20-year-old neighbour to ask for food, because her mother was not home at that time. The neighbour reportedly dragged her inside his house and raped her. Thereafter, he gave her a plate of food to eat. The child reported the ordeal to her mother when she returned home.
A case was reported to the police and the suspect was arrested a few days later and made first his appearance before the Rustenburg Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday, 28 December 2022. He was denied bail and remained in detention until his sentencing on Wednesday, 30 October 2024. The convict was sentenced to 15 years' imprisonment. Furthermore, he was declared unfit to possess a firearm in terms of Section 103 of the Firearms Control Act, 2000 (Act No. 60 of 2000). The Provincial Police Commissioner, Lieutenant General Sello Kwena, applauded the two members involved: Sergeant Mmathapelo Sebogodi and Sergeant Irene Ngwato of Tlhabane and Mogwase FCS Unis respectively, for their diligence in ensuring that the convicts were put behind bars.
