Pta father’s bail application in bid to overturn life imprisonment sentence for daughter’s rape fails
The 45-year-old man has been in a Pretoria prison for six years, fighting for his emancipation as his now adult daughter claims that her father had not raped her.
Willem Abram Raaths, who is serving a life sentence after being convicted of raping his daughter Megan in 2017, was denied an urgent bail application by the Pretoria High Court last week.
Raaths, who was convicted despite Megan recanting her statement in court in 2015, appeared at the Pretoria High Court on Friday and his bail application was dismissed.
Judge Portia Phahlane dismissed the urgent bail application, saying the case was served at the wrong court.
Phahlane said she did not see the need for urgency of bail in the case and struck it from the roll.
The bail application was unopposed by the state attorney Pieter Luyt.
Raaths was found guilty of raping his then eight-year-old daughter and sentenced to four life sentences by the Pretoria magistrate’s court in 2017.
Since then, he has tried to appeal his sentence and this latest bail application was an attempt towards getting his sentence overturned.
In his court papers, Raaths argued that he had sought an appeal due to conflicting statements by his daughter that were taken before his sentencing.
He argued that his daughter had given two conflicting statements in court in 2010 and he questioned their admissibility in court.
Raaths argues that in the initial trial, his daughter had testified that her father had conducted sexual acts unto her; however, before sentencing, she recanted her sworn statement.
Despite the daughter recanting her statement in court in 2015, Raaths was convicted. He has been in prison for six years at Zonderwater correctional services.
His lawyer, Joshua Lazarous, had filed an urgent court application, saying this was due to the case’s “extraordinary, peculiar facts”.
Lazarous claimed that Megan said she was manipulated and allegedly coached by the Christian Social Council or Christelik Maatskaplike Raad (CMR) Noord social workers to testify against her father.
Lazarous argued that the application was launched after the Gauteng Department of Social Services had furnished a report based on an internal investigation regarding social workers at CMR Noord.
He argued that this internal investigation proved the daughter’s latter testimony was true.
Lazarous claimed Megan was coerced by CMR Noord social workers to give alleged false testimony against her father.
CMR Noord, however, said that the allegations made regarding the coercion or coaching and indoctrination of children were false.
It said that Megan, a minor at the time, did not make a full confession to any of the CMR Noord social workers employed by the South African Police Service.
It further claimed that CMR Noord was in no way involved with the trial, conviction or sentencing of Abrie Raaths.
“None of the CMR Noord social workers offered testimony during the trial and they were not part of any subsequent appeal cases,” it said in a media statement.
“No child will ever be coerced or coached to give false testimony or to make false claims.
“It should be noted that each child’s testimony is tested and verified in court.”
Megan, currently 21 years old, has been contesting that the father had not committed sexual acts against her. She is supporting him in an attempt to prove his innocence (see: www.petitions.net/raaths).
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