Malalane - A rape ordeal left an 11-year-old girl in so much pain she could barely walk, the Boschfontein Regional Court, in Mpumalanga, heard on Monday.
The accused, Joseph Rinyawo, of KaMhlushwa township near Malalane pleaded not guilty to rape, a Sapa correspondent reported.
A witness, Jabu Thumbathi, 28, of KaMhlushwa, testified that she was the first to notice something wrong with the girl.
“I noticed something was not right when she came to bring me food at my place. She not walking properly,” said Thumbathi.
She phoned the girl's aunt to inform her.
“I then asked her late aunt Thembekile Nyoni to get out of my room so that I can talk with the child in private as she didn't want to disclose the information in front of her,” she testified.
“When her aunt arrived she told me that she only noticed that the child didn't eat properly and she liked to sleep a lot,” she said.
She said the victim later told them what had happened.
Rinyawo testified that he did not rape the child but only watched a movie with the girl in her aunt's bedroom.
“Worship, this child is lying. Her late aunt asked me to look after her at her house when she went to consult a sangoma at about 7pm on that day.
“She returned home around 12 midnight and they found me and the child still watching movies,” he said.
Prosecutor Thulani Msibi told the court Rinyawo chased the girl, caught and raped her.
Rinyawo was arrested on November 18, 2013.
Magistrate Edgar Moletsane postponed the case to Wednesday for judgment.
Sapa