State wants life sentence for official convicted of child rape

The state wants a convicted child rapist to be handed life imprisonment when the matter returns to Eastern Cape High Court next week.

Sentencing proceedings will get underway for former Eastern Cape department of education subject advisor Louis Pepping, who was found guilty of raping a six-year-old girl.

Rapist’s evidence ‘far-fetched’

Acting Judge Mvuzo Notyesi rejected Pepping’s defence that some other persons brought the victim into his unlocked room and raped her, labelling it as “far-fetched” and inherently improbable.

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He said prosecutor Advocate Mbulelo Nyendwana had proven his case beyond a reasonable doubt and that all the state witnesses were credible. Notyesi accepted the forensic evidence corroborating the state witnesses’ accounts.

Child snatched from the street

The state submitted that Pepping kidnapped the six-year-old while on her way to a nearby spaza shop in September 2019 in Ngobozana village in Lusikisiki.

He then took her to his home where he raped her. Upon realising that the child has not returned from the shop, her grandmother and other went out to search for her. She was later found unwell and “bleeding from her private parts.”

The child led angry community members and the grandmother to Pepping’s premises where they found bloodied sheets in his room. She identified Pepping and the crowd assaulted him.

A video posted on Twitter showed Pepping, dressed only in boxer shorts and bleeding from a head wound, being interrogated by a group of men.

Looking drained, Pepping is heard telling his alleged assaulters to “go to court.”

The official was rescued by a traditional healer who called the police.

Ramaphosa visited child’s family

According to the Mail & Guardian, President Cyril Ramaphosa visited the girl’s family following the incident.

He said that gender-based violence and the murder of women had “exploded in this province”.

A week before Ramaphosa’s visit, hundreds of residents took to the streets to march against Pepping’s bail hearing, saying he did not deserve one. 

The trial was set in Mthatha where Pepping had pleaded not guilty. The case was moved from Lusikisiki due to increased agitation and anger against Pepping.

Pepping laughed throughout most of the proceedings., according to the publication.

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–Compiled by Asanda Mbayimbayi