A 58-year-old man has received a life sentence for the repeated rape of a young boy on the KZN South Coast. 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 onvarious occasions between2021 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”.
Read Full Article on The Mercury
[paywall]
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.
[/paywall]
