Johannesburg - “I’m sorry for seeing my niece as a potential lover.”
A calm man convicted of raping his niece and impregnating her and then years later killing their five-year-old son has apologised for his heinous crime.
The man from Katlehong, Ekurhuleni, also apologised to the community.
But his words did very little, if anything, to appease his niece, Nokhuthula*.
She said in aggravation of sentence that a direct life sentence was suitable for her uncle and father of her first child. “I am afraid of him. He was able to kill my child,” she said, adding her uncle didn’t show any remorse. He had intimidated her on the day she testified.
“I think he should spend life in prison. I don’t feel pity for him. I will never forgive him for what he did to me, as my uncle. My life is messed up because of him. Maybe if it wasn’t for him, I would have had a better life and completed my studies,” said Nokhuthula, now aged 23.
The young woman, who dropped out of school in Grade 4, has since moved out of the area, saying she felt embarrassed.
Last week, Acting Judge Delize Smith convicted the man on two counts of rape and one of murder.
During the trial, Nokhuthula testified that her uncle had threatened to kill her, even though she had resisted his sexual advances during her first ordeal.
He applied petroleum jelly to her genitalia before he raped her, impregnating her.
Nokhuthula’s first ordeal was in 2006, when the accused asked her to sleep in his shack and look after his belongings for the night. She told the court that her grandmother had agreed to the arrangement.
She said her uncle came home late at night and she opened the door for him. She was about to leave when he ordered her to undress. Her grandmother chased her away over the pregnancy. She gave birth in 2008.
The accused was due to be sentenced on Friday.
*Not her real name
The Star