Johannesburg - An Mpumalanga pensioner accused of encouraging her late husband to have sex with their seven-year-old granddaughter appeared in the Nelspruit Regional Court on Monday.
A Sapa correspondent reported that the 65-year-old woman from Kanyamazane outside Nelspruit, pleaded not guilty to charges of inciting someone to commit a sexual offence, conspiracy to rape, and attempted murder.
The court heard that the woman's husband raped the girl twice in 2008. He died in April last year.
Former Rob Ferreira hospital doctor Lucas Ndlovu testified that the girl, who was now 12, was HIV-positive.
He told the court he examined the girl on December 13, 2008, and found that while she had not been recently raped at the time of the check-up, there was evidence that she could have been violated prior to December 13 of that year.
“When the child was brought to me she was not dirty and nothing showed that she had slept with a person within seven days,” testified Ndlovu.
“However, when we checked inside, it showed that something had happened. Something had forcefully penetrated her.”
Ndlovu said it was not clear how the girl contracted HIV.
He said the victim's mother, whose mother and stepfather were implicated in the case, was HIV-negative when tested at the time, which meant the girl was not born with the virus.
“Our tests didn't show how she contracted the disease, but her mother was not positive and there was no semen found in the victim,” said Ndlovu.
Magistrate Andre Geldenhuys told the court the victim could not testify on Monday because she was writing her exams.
The accused is out on warning and the case was postponed to May 22.
Sapa