Pretoria - A Mpumalanga sangoma who exposed himself to an 8-year-old girl and raped her 10-year-old friend, has received a lifeline from the high court in Pretoria when his life imprisonment sentence was commuted to one of 22 years behind bars.
Allen Mthiyane of Ermelo previously told the lower court that he did not touch the children. He said he simply gave them biscuits and juice on the day they claimed he “flashed” his private parts at them and on another day when he was said to have committed rape.
The trial court acquitted him on three charges of exposing himself to children, but convicted him on one of the charges relating to the 8-year-old, as well as the rape.
He turned to the high court to appeal against his sentences.
The incidents occurred in March 2010 when the children were sent to his home to fetch herbs.
One of the victims said they asked Mthiyane for 50c when they got to his home, but he instead told them to go to his bedroom.
He told them to close their eyes, as he was “making a film”.
The girl said she “peeped” and saw that Mthiyane was undressing himself and she and her friends saw his private parts. They ran off and told their parents what had happened.
Shortly afterwards, the rape victim and her friends also went to the man’s house to collect herbal medicine. She said he sent her friends to the shop, while he played a writing game with her.
She said he then raped her.
Her mother testified that she saw her child walking strangely and asked her what the problem was.
The child told her that she had been raped. The child was taken to hospital and the mother reported the incident to the police.
Mthiyane testified that the children followed him home one day after he returned from a soccer field. According to him he gave them juice and biscuits, but he chased them home when they asked him for R20.
Regarding the rape incident, he said some children had again followed him home, where he gave them cabbage and potatoes, as well as R100, before sending them home.
Convicting him of indecent exposure and rape, the lower court accepted the evidence of the children. While Mthiyane did not dispute his conviction on appeal, he complained that the court had dealt too harshly with him. He said he was a father of two small children and the only breadwinner and he did not deserve a life sentence. He was a first offender and had to spend two years in jail awaiting trial.
Judge Winston Msimeki agreed that the sentence was too harsh and said the fact that Mthiyane had spent such a long time awaiting trial warranted a lesser sentence than life imprisonment.
Pretoria News