Eshowe Regional Court last week sentenced a man (33) to life imprisonment for raping a girl (11) in July 2023 on two separate occasions.

The man, who cannot be named to protect the victim’s identity, was a friend of the girl’s family.

The court heard that on one occasion, the man took the victim to town under the guise of buying clothes and visiting the tuck shop. He raped her along the way.

In another incident, the accused was socialising with the girl’s parents when her father requested a pair of scissors from him.

The accused asked the girl to accompany him to his house, where he raped her.

It was during the second assault that a neighbour heard the victim crying and alerted her friends.

They intervened, took the accused and the victim to the police station and opened a criminal case.

The accused was arrested, the girl’s parents informed, and the girl taken to hospital for a medical examination.

During the trial, Prosecutor Nomthandazo Mkhize led the evidence of the victim, the individual who had intervened, and the medical doctor.

In her victim impact statement, the girl said she no longer feels human, experiences recurring flashbacks of her ordeal, and struggles to concentrate.

In addition to the life sentence, the court declared the convict unfit to possess a firearm and ordered that his name be included in the National Register for Sex Offenders.

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