Durban - A man accused of raping a number of boys had apparently confessed to the crimes when confronted by neighbours, the Pinetown Magistrate’s Court heard on Thursday.
“When I asked him why he did such a thing, he said it was something he had no control over; it happened automatically. I asked him if he had used condoms and he said he is not sick, but he used condoms,” said Maureen Nxumalo, speaking of Sipho Mfene, 62, who is charged with 11 counts of rape and six of compelled rape at St Wendolin’s, near Pinetown.
Mfene’s alleged victims were all boys, two of them brothers. The first alleged rape took place in 2015 when the victim was 7. Mfene is also alleged to have forced or instructed the boys to perform sex acts with one another, leading to the compelled rape charges.
The children and Mfene are all from the same community in St Wendolin’s, where he was known to his victims as “Mkhulu” (grandpa).
Nxumalo said in May 2017 two women came to her home with two of the victims and asked if she had heard the allegations against Mfene.
“They were too overwhelming to handle on my own, so I called some members of the community and we went to Mkhulu’s house, but he was not there,” she said.
Nxumalo said they reported the matter to Mfene’s cousin, the grandmother of two of his alleged victims.
Once at the house, the group
found out that Mfene had not been sleeping there for the previous two days and his cousin did not know where he was.
“I asked for his number and told auntie (the cousin) that I was going to call Mkhulu under the pretext of a job opportunity that had surfaced. I told him that I found him a job looking after the newly built communal showers by his house. I told him to come immediately to my house, which he did,” Nxumalo said.
She also phoned the police, who did not arrive, and after three hours the community members marched Mfene to the police.
She said it was on this walk that he admitted to the rapes.
Leading evidence, Mfene’s cousin - who cannot be named to protect the identity of her grandsons - said she was confronted by her niece, who asked why she was harbouring a molester in their home, two days before his arrest.
“She explained that Mfene’s son had told her that he’d walked into his house one day to find his father under the covers with one of the little boys. Immediately I called the two boys,” she said.
The boys had confirmed to her that Mfene had raped them.
“I was angry. I walked outside and shouted, saying to him he had gone to jail for sleeping with young boys and he had come back with the same habit.
“After that he left and he was no longer sleeping at his house,” she said.
Dr Jabulani Mthembu, who
examined three of the victims, told the court that his medical findings for two of the boys were consistent with anal penetration, while he could not confirm nor refute anal penetration from the third child’s examination.
One of Mfene’s alleged victims died last April after being electrocuted by illegally connected electricity while carrying home a bucket of water.
Legal aid attorney Sipho Radebe said Mfene’s version was that the allegations against him were fabrications by the witnesses and his son.
“He also denies he automatically abused young children,” said Radebe.
The trial was adjourned to October for further evidence.