The Voice (Francistown)
Innocent Tshukudu
11 March 2008
Francistown — A sex perverted man will spend the next ten years in jail for raping his nine year old stepdaughter.
Forty-six-year-old Kopano Molefhe had his appeal against conviction and sentence, imposed on him by the magistrate's court, turned down by a Francistown High Court after Justice Thomas Masuku found that the grounds for appeal were not substantial.
The court heard that when the incident occurred, Molefhe had left Poloka Village for Dikalakalane cattle-post with his two daughters aged eight and nine years. The following day, Molefhe left the girls and went to a nearby shebeen to drink traditional beer. When he went back home at 8pm he found the children asleep. He then woke up his elder daughter who was sleeping naked. The court heard that the lustful stepfather removed his trousers and raped the young girl twice.
Three days later the children went back to Poloka Village where, upon arrival, they visited their elder sister who later noticed that her sibling was not walking properly. The little girl then, after being questioned, told her sister about what had happened at the cattle post. She then took her to her mother and later the matter was reported to the police.
The young girl was taken to Mahalapye Primary hospital while the accused was detained.
Molefhe was later convicted by a Mahalapye magistrate's court and was sentenced to a ten-year jail term.
Last week Molefhe appeared before Justice Masuku to appeal against both the conviction and sentence. In his grounds of appeal Molefhe complained that the trial magistrate had erred by not providing him a chance to engage an advocate. He also claimed that he never submitted any confession statement and that the magistrate never considered evidence submitted by the medical doctor who examined the complainant.
In his ruling Justice Masuku dismissed the appeal and upheld the ten-year mandatory sentence that was imposed by the magistrate. "In view of the foregoing, I am of the view that the appeal against both conviction and sentence is wholly unmeritorious and is hereby dismissed."
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