Pitermaritzburg - The NPA on Tuesday welcomed the life sentence imposed on a 51-year-old man who raped his friend's daughter.
The man, Joseph Khulise, was sentenced in the Pietermaritzburg Regional Court on Tuesday.
Khulise raped the girl in 2011. She was 10 years old at the time, said National Prosecuting Authority spokesman Nathi Mncube.
“She was at his home, visiting her friend when she suffered an epileptic attack,” said Mncube.
Khulise told her that she should stay over and insisted that the girl and his daughter share the bed with him.
“During the course of the night, when his daughter was fast asleep, the accused raped the complainant,” Mncube said in a statement.
The girl reported the incident to her grandmother two weeks later.
In a victim impact statement the child told the court: “I could not sleep when he had done this to me as it was painful.
“He should not have done that because I was a child. A child should not feel such a painful thing.”
The prosecutor, Mariam Aboobaker, had called for a life sentence for Khulise, stating that he showed no remorse.
She also argued that the accused had failed to show that substantial and compelling circumstances for a lighter sentence existed.
Sapa