Aaron Sipho Sibanyoni (from Hendrina) was found guilty on several counts by Magistrate Deon Minnie and the case postponed to 30 August for sentencing.

The State alleged that the accused committed the offences from 2010 to 2013.

Magistrate Minnie said it appears that although the accused was arrested in some of these cases, he was never actually brought to book or charged due to a lack of sufficient evidence.

“Instead, the accused was subsequently connected with the commission of these offences through a process where his DNA, which was on the data system of the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL), was compared with those of the alleged victims in all the respective case dockets and whose DNA was also on the data system, and that in so doing, what is called “a hit” was established.”

This refers to the fact that his DNA was positively connected with DNA samples obtained from the various victims which were also on the FSL data system.

This resulted in the re-opening of old cases, some of which had already been closed, which involved the victims in this case.

There were six victims, a 68-year-old woman (who has since passed on), as well as five boys, who were between the ages of nine and 14 years old during the offences.

Sibanyoni was found guilty on six counts of rape, four counts of kidnapping, one count of sexual assault and one count of common assault

• Magistrate Minnie mentioned the statement of Cst Thembi Ndlanzi in the rape case of the elderly woman.

The old woman described to Cst Ndlanzi how she was raped. During the process of taking down the statement, the 68-year-old victim was, according to Cst Ndlanzi, “very emotional and crying.”

The doctor who examined the woman testified that she recalled this particular patient very well as she was the oldest sexual assault victim she had ever examined as she normally works in the specialised field of paediatrics.

• Through an intermediary, a boy testified what happened to him when he was just nine years old.

He said that he was walking from his grandmother’s home on 20 December 2011 in Hendrina. When passing a shop he noticed a man, who called him and asked for the boy’s assistance to drive his cattle back. After they walked for some distance the boy indicated his reluctance to be of further assistance.

The man thereupon grabbed the boy by his arm and when he tried to scream, he was slapped in the face once. The man dragged him into a nearby bush, where he instructed him to remove his clothing and lie on the ground.

The boy refused to lie down and the man then forcefully made him lie down. The man thereupon took off the boy’s clothes as well as his own and raped him twice.

• The next victim was a 16-year-old boy who said that he was also lured into Sibanyoni’s lies on 14 August 2012.

In this instance, the boy went to a dumping site, when Sibanyoni approached him.

He said Sibanyoni told him to help him with cattle and later to pick up wood. At a clump of trees, Sibanyoni grabbed him, threatened him with a knife and raped him.

• About a month later on 23 September 2012, a young boy was the next victim when he stood up to close a door at his house, which he thought the wind had blown open.

At the door was a man who told him that he must get dressed and go with him to intervene in a fight in which his (the boy’s) sister was involved.

After a long distance the boy realised that they were not going to that particular house, so he inquired where they were going. The man grabbed his right hand and forced him to go with him “to fetch a pig” and that he would give him R5.

In a veld near a dam, he grabbed the boy and raped him.

• A boy testified in January 2014 what Sibanyoni did to him when he was in grade six.

He went to a shop where a man asked him to buy cigarettes for him. As he was about to take the money from him, Sibanyoni grabbed him.

He tried to scream, but the man throttled him and threatened to kill him if he screamed. The boy was picked up and carried on his shoulder to a bush.

He instructed the child to kiss him, but he refused, whereafter he slapped the boy several times and the boy eventually complied.

Sibanyoni then raped him.

• There was also a young boy who testified that he was raped by Sibanyoni in early 2012 after he was sent to buy cooldrink for a family member.

A man approached him near the liquor shop and asked him to go with him to buy liquor.

Together they walked to the shop, where the man indicated he was no longer going to buy liquor, but that he was going to look for his cattle. He grabbed the boy, covered his mouth, carried him to a bush and raped him.

After the rape, he gave the boy R2.

• A long list of witnesses testified in the case, which included: forensic nurses, Lt Col Michelle Thompson (Commander of the National DNA Serials Casework Team), Major Hayden Knibbs (from the SA Police Services’ Investigative Psychology Section and is a clinical psychologist by profession), family members of the victims and investigating officers.

• Sibanyoni pleaded not guilty to all the charges and testified that he could not recall how many times he was arrested for the charges relating to this case.

He did not dispute the fact that the respective victims, in this case, had been raped, kidnapped and assaulted, but said that he “was not the person who did that.”

Magistrate Minnie concluded with: “when I apply these principles to the evidence before me, the evidence presented by the State is indeed overwhelming. I find myself hard pressed to come to any other conclusion than that the accused is guilty and that the State has thus succeeded in proving its case beyond a reasonable doubt.”