Durban high court has sentenced a 46-year-old man who raped his 10-year-old stepdaughter close to 1,000 times over five years to nine life terms.
The man was further given a 173-year prison sentence after being found guilty of 56 counts relating to rape, human trafficking, sexual grooming, sexual abuse and distribution of child pornography.
The rapist is to serve his almost 400-year prison sentence at Durban’s Westville Correctional Centre, South Africa.
According to the Sunday Times Daily, the man, an auto electrician by trade who cannot be named to protect the identity of the child, had also deliberately laced his fingers with acid to burn off his fingerprints in an apparent attempt to prevent him being linked to other crimes.
He was arrested in June 2018 at his home in Verulam, north of Durban, after the child confided in a neighbour about the alleged abuses who then rallied a group of women who confronted the man when he returned home from work.
Narrating how the man was arrested, Private Security Company Reaction Unit SA (Rusa) spokesperson Prem Balram said they were called in for assistance after a group of residents had discovered horrifying videos of the rapes on the man’s mobile phone.
“His mobile phone was confiscated and several video recordings of rape were found. Recordings of other men and woman engaged in sexual activity with the child were also found on the memory card. Pictures of the accused using woman’s lingerie were also discovered on the phone.”
Dildos and other sex toys used to penetrate the girl during sexual acts were also confiscated in the home.
It was revealed during the trial that he man had raped his stepdaughter since the death of her mother in 2013 almost every second day at their residences in Benoni, Effingham, Pinetown, Reservoir Hills, Sydenham and other areas in Gauteng and Kwazulu-Natal.
Investigating officer, Lutchminarain detailed how the accused had issued threats to all those who he felt had contributed to his incarceration.
“I spoke to the applicant and he told me to pass on a message to the victim, specifically not to forget what he had promised her. When I spoke to her, she said the applicant had told her if she went to the police they would both be locked up and he would put her in the same place he put her mother,” he said.
The one-bedroom home where the man had kept the girl hostage for years had one entrance with a bolted door and windows blacked out with newspaper.
Judge Mohini Moodley found the accused guilty of all 56 charges and said he should be registered as a sex offender and not be allowed near children.
Moodley said the stepfather had prostituted the child for financial gain and the investigating officer, Nevarge Lutchminarain of the Verulam family violence, child protection and sexual offences unit, should pursue charges against all those who abused the child sexually.
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