He raped her - tearing off her clothes so violently that he broke the zipper on her jeans. And before he raped her, he forced her to touch him in a way that would make him “hot”. Her whole body shook as he violated her.
This was the testimony of a 35-year-old woman gave to the Pretoria Regional Court before it convicted Thandixolo Sayite, 31, on two charges of rape, and one each of robbery and kidnapping on Tuesday.
The victim was working on an RDP construction site on October 10, 2008 near Nellmapius.
She was talking on her cellphone, when a man ran up behind her.
The next thing she knew he was in front of her, demanding her phone.
The man then forced her into his car. He drove to Equestria, dragged her into the bushes and forced her onto her knees.
After he had raped her, he tried to use her phone to call a friend of his. When she gave him the wrong pin, he assaulted her - then raped her a second time. Sayite then left her and the frightened woman ran to Hans Strijdom Drive.
“An old man on a bicycle stopped and offered me his phone,” the woman said. Her boss drove out to find her next to the road. She reported the rape to the police and provided an identikit of her attacker.
On October 27 that year, she was in Nellmapius again, when she saw Sayite.
“I started to cry and called out,” she said. The community grabbed Sayite and assaulted him so badly that he spent 10 days in hospital.
Sayite was connected to the rape via DNA. However, he claimed that the victim was a prostitute who had agreed to have sex with him for money.
He said he ran away before paying her the R50 he owed her, but later returned as he felt guilty.
“But the prostitute had organised a mob who attacked me,” he claimed.
Magistrate Fikile Ntlati rejected Sayite’s version of events.
Defence lawyer Martin Botha argued that the accused, a painter in Silver Lakes, had already been punished as he was assaulted by the community and spent two years in jail awaiting trial.
State prosecutor Vusi Nonyane disagreed, adding that Sayite had refused to put on a condom when he raped the woman.
“He told her: ‘I’m raping you, no need for a condom’. Not only was she raped, but she didn’t know if she was contracting HIV,” Nonyane said.
Sayite will be sentenced on Thursday.- Pretoria News